No Strings to Hold Me Down
by Mooka333
Summary: #4 in a series of 4 fics: She just wanted to stay in hiding, everyone was safer that way, but *someone* (ahem, Tony) just had to go and play god, and Winnie was thrust right back into the mix. Killer robots, freaky copycats, and a really, really fast guy manage to disassemble the Avengers - putting them back together again might never work. Life on the run was so much easier.
1. Chapter 1

***** Yes, this series is back – I've been toying with this little AoU one-shot for a while, but lacked a lot of the motivation to write it because writer's block. I recommend you read the other three in the series first or else you'll be super lost (1.** _ **Until the End**_ **, 2.** _ **Remember, Remember**_ **, and 3.** _ **It Takes Seconds to Break**_ **).**

 **This story begins after Ultron is first 'born' at Stark tower, specifically, shortly after Ultron first meets up with the Maximoff twins. As per usual, I follow the movie-ish, taking liberties where and how I see fit, sometimes pulling alternate plots and ideas from the comics, or AoS, or other Marvel mediums… sometimes I pull from nowhere but my own brain** **Gonna be a few chapters long – was supposed to be just one chapter, but then I couldn't stop writing it and now it's a little bloated for the "one-shot" class, but let's just pretend lol**

 **Thanks so much for all the reads, reviews, follows and favs on all the bits leading up to this, guys! It makes me ridiculously happy** **Hope you all enjoy, again, as always – I own my OC and nothing else! *****

She'd begun to have qualms about stealing. A lot of theft paved her way around Europe. It gave her sleepless nights and rankled her conscience, almost constantly. Winnie hadn't been raised in any environment that encouraged it, and she certainly had never lived _any_ portion of her life since then as someone who condoned theft. Necessity had changed her behaviour though. She knew a lot of it could be avoided if she didn't move around so much, but she knew that staying on the move was the most logical thing to do.

The decision to steal as little as possible meant that she wasn't staying in quaint cottages or cute seaside villas anymore. She looked around the drab hovel she was currently residing in, on the fringes of an obscure Eastern European country's capitol city, and sighed. It was mean and spare. It cost hardly anything, and if she squinted she could hardly see the stains on the walls, ceiling, and floor.

If she were a normal woman, travelling alone through Europe, there was no chance at all that this ground floor 'apartment' (it hardly deserved the name) would be her home right now. The door was flimsy, the lock on it was laughable, and the one window wouldn't close. However, being something more than a regular woman had its perks. She was able to keep people away by wrapping the entry to her unit with a wall of her power. It hardly took any focus on her part.

Winnie sighed and looked back down at the little laptop on her bed. She was scrolling through several different news sites, trying to find information on Bucky, or Steve. She found nothing on Bucky; she never did. Steve was active as an Avenger again, and that made news, but she wasn't worried about him. She worried constantly about Bucky. More than once over the past several months she had considered attempting to dip into his mind – search the world with her power if she could, try and find him, try to get inside his mind, just to feel his presence, to find out if he was alright.

She was worried about that though, concerned that she might hurt him, if she could even locate him in that way. While on the run, she had acquired a great deal of use, practice, and knowledge about accessing people's minds, either to see what they were currently thinking, look at old thoughts, or to control their actions in the present by twisting their perceptions of the things around them. However, all of this experience she had gained was always in close quarters; she'd never accessed a mind long distance.

She _could_ practice on strangers, she knew, but after the death and destruction she'd caused in Puerto Rico, she was done with inadvertently hurting innocent people. So, accessing Bucky from afar was tempting, but not appealing due to the potential for disaster. In the end she always abandoned the thought, the risks being too great for her.

Winnie sighed again, the air whistling between her teeth quietly. There was nothing about the Avengers online right now. The last flurry of news had been after a huge battle had been waged in the forests surrounding the same city she was currently residing in. That had been a couple of weeks ago, and after the Avengers and the military had pulled out of the Sokovian region, Winnie decided that the safest place to go would be a place they'd just left; little chance anyone would be looking for her here.

She closed the laptop without touching it, and stretched her arms above her head, rolling her neck side to side. She was feeling a little restless, achy almost, because it had been raining for the past 24 hours straight and had only just stopped in the past few minutes. Due to her open window, everything in her apartment felt damp. It was unpleasant, and the already rather dingy living space was now even less appealing. Winnie pulled her sweatshirt's hood up over her head, taking a deep breath to try and clear her thoughts.

Breathing in and out slowly, she allowed her power to envelop her, enjoying the warmth and comfort of it. In her cocoon, she was able to truly feel everything around her: the wind out in the countryside felt as if it were tickling her arms, the warmth of a baker's oven 6 blocks away felt wonderful, the smell of fresh, wet laundry snapping on a line on the other side of town was clean and refreshing… the huge robot pulling apart the bricks on the back side of the castle was loud and grating.

 _Wait, what?_ Winnie's eyes snapped open and she bounced to her feet. "Shit," she murmured, panic suffusing her limbs. She turned to her knapsack and tore it open, haphazardly stuffing her laptop and a few other belongings in it, before zipping it closed. She stuffed her feet into her boots and then grabbed her rain jacket, pulling it on in a hurry, the back pack slinging onto her back shortly thereafter. Winnie's eyes skated about the apartment, to make sure she wasn't leaving any trace of herself.

Satisfied that there wasn't anything left that could be linked to her, she pulled the door open and stepped outside, the door closing behind her on its own. Her head turned carefully back and forth, tendrils of power stretching out unseen all around her. She sensed nothing close by. Once more, before stepping out onto the street, Winnie cast out, feeling for the robot again. It was still there, and its design was certainly a familiar one: _Stark._

She growled under breath, frustrated that Tony was back in Sokovia for some reason. _Or at least one of his stupid minions is here._ Her mental eye still on the robot, she flinched hard when the thing suddenly spun around, its red eyes moving swiftly back and forth, as if examining her presence. _It can't see me, even Tony can't know how to track this part of me._ Indeed it couldn't see her, but it _did_ see the local police officer who approached it, yelling at it in Sokovian. Winnie called out wordlessly in horror when the robot swung a powerful appendage at the officer, breaking the man's neck with a violent snap. The officer fell, dead.

Standing frozen, she realized that the police were attempting to surround the metal creature in front of them, as more and more uniformed human figures began to aggressively approach the robot. Disbelief powered her actions then, she didn't know what the hell was going on, but she knew for a certainty that this _wasn't_ Tony. Tony Stark was a lot of things, but he was not a wanton killer. Winnie considered reaching out from this distance and destroying the robot, but with so many officers that close, she couldn't risk it; her power lacked a lot of finesse from a distance.

Breaking into a sprint, she raced down the street, stealing the first car she saw. The rain let up, but the darkening streets were slick and wet and she was driving like a crazy person, many motorists yelling and gesturing at her through their windows as she careened down the road. She had to sever the mental link to the scene at the Sokovian castle, wanting to ensure that she herself didn't inadvertently kill anyone in her haste to get there.

Winnie left the car parked a block or two away from where the castle lay, running as quickly as she could down the long driveway towards the old structure. Once it had been for royalty, then it fell into disrepair and disuse, as had the Sokovian monarchy. Next it was a prison. Then it was a historical site, attracting tourists. World War II brought an end to the tourist trade, and Sokovia fell into extreme poverty. If the news from a couple of weeks ago was any indication, Winnie suspected that it had become a Hydra base during and after the Second World War. Now it was abandoned again; the police had cordoned it off after the Avengers and their troops left.

The blocked gates proved to be no obstacle for her and she ran hard, her rain boots making ungainly thumps on the wet pavement on her way up. She had her sweatshirt hood up, her blonde hair tucked inside it, and the larger hood of her jacket on top of that. Since the jacket was dark, as were all her clothes, she hoped that anyone who might have been watching, wouldn't see her approach.

Rounding the corner of the castle, out of breath and nearly wheezing from exertion, Winnie came upon the horrific sight of all of the police officers lying dead and mangled. The robot stood where it had at the start, next to the section of wall it was ripping out. Its eager gaze rose to her when she moved into sight, fists clenched at her sides.

"You're not a police officer," the robot spoke, its voice friendly, amused.

"You're not Stark's," she said through a tight jaw; she was utterly incensed by the death around her. This thing would be destroyed by night's end, she would see to that, but first she needed to know where the hell it came from, and why. She may not be Nomad any longer, or part of SHIELD, but she'd be damned if she'd stand idly by and let something like this go on.

The robot chuckled. "No, no I'm not," it replied, " _Thank you_ for seeing that, no one ever does."

"Who made you?" She growled, moving closer, gingerly stepping around the fallen men at her feet.

"Ah! But that's the best part," it answered, delighted, "No one made me!" Standing about ten feet away, Winnie glared at the creature, wondering if it would sound so glib if it could sense the angry power coiled around her right now.

"Impossible," she hissed, " _Who_ _made you?_ " It shrugged at her. "I don't see how that is any of your business," it scolded her, "You know, you humans are awfully nosy." It took a menacing step towards her, raising a metal fist in the air. "Time to say goodbye, I have things to attend to," it explained. Winnie nodded in curt agreement.

"Goodbye," she replied angrily, raising one hand in the air. The robot flew backwards, crashing into the wall that it had been dismantling before.

"Wha-?" It managed to get out, before she closed her fist tightly and crushed its entire body in one movement. She paused, breathing heavily, as the thing crackled and sparked, pieces and chunks of it raining down to the ground. Winnie lowered her arm and let out a breath of relief. She had only a moment to feel her triumph mingle with the horror and regret of not being able to save all these men. The next thing she knew, she was hit with something, bodily, in the side, and flew across the paved area she stood in.

It happened faster than she could have stopped, and she only managed to save herself from a painful and nasty tumble to the concrete with a wild burst of power, halting herself over the ground. She got to her feet and spun quickly, putting up a wall of energy around herself. There was nothing in this open space besides herself, the dead men, and the crushed robot. She shook her head; _something_ had shoved her violently. Winnie thought she saw a streak of movement out of the corner of her eye and she raised her hands towards it swiftly, throwing out a powerful wave; trees splintered and cracked, falling violently when the wave hit them instead of whatever it was she saw.

Winnie moved quickly, her SHIELD training filling her muscles with the memories of evasion tactics. She ran from the areas that were well lit, racing blindly into the dark, preferring that to being visible. She crouched behind a fallen tree, staying still, flinching when drops of water, still clinging to the branches from other trees above her, pattered down onto the hood of her jacket. She felt a sudden pressure behind her as something attempted to approach at her back. Whatever it was rebounded off the powerful wall of energy she was wrapped in and it grunted, a pained noise.

She jerked around and thought, for a moment, that she saw a figure laying on the ground several feet away, but then it was gone. Blinking frantically, Winnie spun in a circle, releasing a tidal wave of her ability around her. Everything in her path was hit with it, and there was a soundless impact to the air which she felt all the way down to her bones. The surrounding trees bent under the wave of power and all froze, mid-bend. She heard more grunting and turned back to the open area again, and saw a man standing there, also frozen solid within the confines of her power. He looked to be midstride. Smiling, Winnie moved to approach her frozen target, dropping the protective cocoon of power about herself in favor of scanning the area in front of her.

"Who are you?" She barked, striding purposefully towards him, her power shoving the bodies of the fallen men out of her way without her realising it. She got closer and the young man's blue eyes widened in alarm. "Who?" She yelled. He didn't answer and she pulled back her hoods, revealing herself. It was an act of vanity, to a certain extent; she was used to being recognized and was hoping if this idiot realized he had encountered Nomad, he would give in.

Instead, he smirked at her, frozen as he was, and shook his head as much as her power would allow him. "You think I would give information to a pretty girl?" He mocked her, though his eyes belied the fact that he was still worried. She glared at him and waved a hand around them.

"You think it's noble to kill innocent men?" She snapped. "You would let the men who protect you die?" She recognized his accent, he was very likely a local; if he was in league with the robot, then he'd had a hand in killing his own people.

"They protected no one but their own corrupt interests," he replied angrily, his brows drawing down in real fury. He looked past her then and suddenly relaxed fully at whatever he spied behind her.

Winnie had only a moment to turn, to catch the slightest glimpse of red tendrils flicking at the edges of her body and her head, before she went rigid, her vision going red as all of her defenses dropped, freeing the frozen man in front of her. She was faintly aware of her body going slack and falling to the ground. Two arms caught her before she slammed into the pavement, but she was lost in the red horrors in her mind by then, and didn't know.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

 _Her mother smoothed down the shoulders of Winnie's dress, a smile on her face. "You look perfect, dear," her mother murmured gently, "He's going to adore it." Winnie returned the soft smile and turned to the mirror by the window. Her mother stood behind her proudly, her hands fluttering lightly around Winnie's head, rearranging her veil._

 _Winnie took in the sight of herself, dressed in white, soft, trimmed with lace, her long dark hair resting in perfect smooth waves about her head, and all of her framed by the gauzy sweetness of her veil._

 _She blinked, feeling oddly out of sorts for a long moment as the scene before her abruptly changed from her mother and the mirror. Winnie turned and smiled up at her father, her hand clasped to his arm. "It's about time, don't you think?" Her father asked her, as they made their way down the aisle._

" _About time?" She asked him, uncertain. He nodded, gesturing with his head down the aisle, which was blurred and indistinct; she could see neither the guests nor who waited at the end of it._

" _It's been over 70 years, he waited long enough to make an honest woman out of you," her father grumbled good-naturedly. Winnie couldn't understand, but it was alright, because they were at the altar now. Her father released her, a sad smile on his face as he melted back into the blurred nothingness of the crowd in the pews. She felt a painful stab of longing in her chest, watching him go. Winnie turned slowly to see who had reclaimed her hands. It was Bucky._

 _He was in his dress uniform and he was smiling sweetly at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "I told you when I got back we'd finally make it real," he assured her, tilting his head to the side so he could press a kiss to her cheek, and she felt his dress hat press into her hair as well. Winnie smiled and turned to face him, their hands still clasped. She was happier than she'd been in her entire life, and her chest constricted with a swelling of joy and love so intense she thought she might crack into pieces._

" _Bucky," she breathed, struggling to speak through her tear-choked throat, "They took me, and you never came for me." He smiled at her. "I, James, take you, Winifred," he replied. She shook her head._

" _You don't understand," she pleaded with him, "I'm not me anymore!"_

" _For my lawful wife. To have and to hold," Bucky continued, a serene smile on his face. Winnie's veil fluttered off of her head and she tried to turn to see where it had gone, but was drawn irresistibly to gaze back at Bucky._

" _From this day forward," he spoke lovingly, his eyes locked on hers. Winnie felt her resolve melting, but gasped when she realized her dress was literally disintegrating off of her body, large swaths of the rich white fabric sloughing to the ground._

" _For better and for worse."_

 _Winnie cried out in wordless alarm as she was left standing in the Hydra issued sleeveless shirt she'd worn as their prisoner._

" _For richer and for poorer."_

 _The rest of the wedding dress melted from her and she was standing now in the same blue pants she had worn while captive. Her breathing quickened, but when she met Bucky's adoring gaze again, she breathed in deeply and returned his smile, her heart feeling like it might burst for love of him._

" _In sickness and in health."_

 _Winnie shrieked when dark globs of something fluttered across her face, realizing in utter horror that it was her hair, all of it falling out in huge chunks, tumbling off her shoulders, drifting to the ground. Her head was cold, shorn nearly bare, exposed in a way that made tears leak from her eyes. Bucky's grip on her hands tightened for a long moment and she was finally drawn back into his beautiful blue eyed gaze._

" _As long as we both shall live," he finished, "I love you."_

"Winnie! _" A voice screamed from behind her, the voice choked with terror and panic. Winnie turned her head towards the noise, even though breaking from Bucky's gaze was painful. She stared down the aisle to see Bucky marching towards her, desperation on his features. This was not her sweet Bucky in his dress uniform. This was Bucky, powerfully built, in his gear as the_ Soldier, _metal arm glinting sharply. His hair swung against the sides of his scruffy face as he fought to get to her, battling with some unseen force which was trying to push him back._

" _You can't!" He screamed, "You're playing into their hands! Winnie!" He was trying desperately to reach her, bowed into the terrible invisible wall holding him back. She was confused and tried to call to him, to tell him to stop fighting whatever it was, when movement caught her eye. She looked down and saw her own arm stretched out towards him, her hand stiff, the fingers clawed with strain as she released wave after wave of violent energy at him._

" _Winnie! Let go of him, get away! Run Winnie! Run!" He yelled hoarsely, before he tumbled backwards and flew, screaming, down the aisle, away into the darkness awaiting at the end of it. Someone was laughing, and Winnie turned back towards the man clasping her hands lovingly. It was no longer Bucky in his uniform. Winnie felt as if the air was forced from her lungs, her skin growing cold with horror._

 _Reinhardt stood there, both her hands trapped in his grasp. He was laughing, so hard, and with so much vigor, that she could see his back teeth glinting in his jackal smile. "Discovery," he hissed, "Requires Experimentation." Winnie tried to scream as he leaned towards her, biting her neck, releasing a burning venom that sank through her veins and muscles like a familiar fire._

 _Darkness, the kind only Hydra could give her, rose up in a smothering wall to envelope her._

" _You will always find us," a voice promised her darkly, before she succumbed to the pull of the darkness._

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Winnie thrashed in her restraints, coming-to in a daze. She opened her eyes slowly, incrementally, panting in fear. The dream clung to her skin like a stain. She could feel the sour taste of her own panic in her throat and mouth. "Bucky," she murmured, the memory of seeing him, both versions of himself, causing her pain.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Came a familiar voice, "She's so good at inviting herself inside another's mind." Winnie turned her head to the side and her eyes widened in disbelief.

"How?" She asked in shock, "I destroyed you." The robot smiled at her, _smiled_ , and she felt her face go slack with shock. It shrugged, a truly human gesture.

"I am more than just one body," it informed her pleasantly, "And although you've been annoying, it's been fascinating to finally meet you, now that I know who and what you are. _Nomad."_ Winnie closed her mouth with a snap. She realized she couldn't move her hands when she tried to raise her fist towards the robot. Looking down, Winnie was disturbed to see snaking lines of red smoke twisting about her arms, legs, and torso. The smoke moved languidly, but felt like steel. She experimentally jerked her limbs, trying to physically free herself, but it proved fruitless.

"My friend has you quite secure," the thing assured her, "She's a big fan of yours, you know." Winnie stared at the creature, dumbfounded. "You make no sense," she snapped. It raised the metal above its cold red eye; whatever passed as a robot eyebrow, and gestured at something behind her, beckoning.

"Wanda, come here," it invited. Winnie was plastered against a half wall, just tall enough to accommodate her height, and when the young woman moved around the edge of it, the smoking red lines encasing Winnie dripping dangerously from her extended fingers, she locked her gaze on Winnie, not breaking eye contact.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the metal creature stated, "My name is Ultron. This is Wanda Maximoff." It gestured at the woman who, at least physically, looked to be around the same age as Winnie. There was a strange _zip_ to the air, a breeze buffeting against Winnie's hair, and suddenly the man from earlier, the one she had frozen, stood next to Wanda.

"Ah, yes, and you've met Wanda's brother, Pietro," Ultron offered. Pietro nodded his head at her, smiling slyly. She glared at him, and then at Wanda, before directing the baleful glower to Ultron.

"The Tesseract is gone, how are they possible?" She spoke with rage and suspicion, trying again, in vain, to pull physically from her prison. Wanda smirked and spoke, drawing Winnie's attention.

"There was no Tesseract," she informed Winnie haughtily, her accent matching her brother's, "We are more than that." Winnie closed her eyes and reached out mentally, joining with her ability easily. She could feel the power emanating from Wanda, could nearly taste it as she ran it through the filter of her own invisible ability. It was different than her own power, this was immediately apparent. There was something tantalizing about it; Winnie was overcome with a sudden, ridiculous urge to link her own power with Wanda's, just to see what happened.

There was again a sudden rush to the air, and the pressure of a hand closed gently around her throat, making Winnie's eyes pop open.

Pietro stood directly in front of her, his eyes on hers. "Don't think we don't see," he warned her, his voice low, "You think no one can see, but _we_ can see."

Her brow crinkled in confusion. "See?" She asked, her voice purposefully smaller than it had been a moment ago. _Show them weakness, lure them with that lie, and gain the upper hand when they think they've won._ Bucky's words, from their endless training while in hiding together, came rushing to the forefront and she slipped the advice on easily.

"You see Wanda's as red, yes? Everyone can." He told her, his voice still quiet. His breath was warm on her face and she resisted the urge to yell at him to back off. "Well, you are blue," Pietro informed her, nearly whispering the words, his eyes never leaving hers. Winnie quirked her mouth up in disbelief.

"You lie," she replied easily, "No one can see any stupid blue. You're just trying to flatter me." He backed away and released her neck, staring at her for a long moment with amused eyes, before moving in an instantaneous blur to Wanda's side.

"We can," Wanda spoke, her voice throaty, "Perhaps it is the Tesseract which makes you invisible to others, but _we_ can see it."

Winnie's eyes darted around the room, freezing when she saw the near-faded Hydra symbol on the wall across the room. She narrowed her gaze hatefully when she saw it.

"I should've known," she grumbled, "Goddamn Hydra." She turned her loathing on the group in front of her. Ultron put both of its hands in the air.

"Oh, now, don't lump us in with those villains," it urged her pleasantly, "We are not Hydra." Wanda twitched in fury and glared at Winnie. "We are not Hydra," she repeatedly heatedly, the hazy red lines emanating from her hands jerking with her rage, "They will never control us again. No one will. Not Hydra, not SHIELD, not the Avengers, no one." Pietro nodded in agreement with his sister's words, his jaw muscles ticking in his face.

"Then what exactly are you?" Winnie asked, exasperation flooding her tone; she was just about ready to be done here. Ultron waved a hand around itself. "I have plans, plans that your friends won't like, but we aren't Hydra," it explained.

"Then how the hell are these two possible," Winnie demanded, jerking her chin towards the brother and sister staring at her. Wanda unnerved and fascinated her. Pietro just stared and stared, unnerving her for different reasons. Ultron smiled, a disturbing thing on a robot face. "Hydra likes its experiments," it offered, "Think of Wanda as Nomad 2.0."

"And Speedy?" She asked in a mocking voice, nodding at Pietro. At the same time she let a wisp of her ability flow from her hands, onto the floor, seeping it towards where Ultron stood. _Let's see if he's full of crap; if they can really 'see' me._

"I am not a replication of anyone," Pietro answered her flatly. She regarded him evenly for a moment until he grinned at her flirtatiously. "I'm one of a kind," he added, winking at her. She rolled her eyes and released an extra flow of slow energy and power towards Wanda this time. That was when Pietro's smile fell and he raced to Winnie's side again, grabbing both of her hands in his.

"Stop," he growled at her. She smiled at him, as sweetly and as innocently as she possibly could. "Stop what?" She asked him, trying to infuse her tone with as much girly playfulness as possible. He blinked rapidly at her, thrown off.

"We can _see_ , remember?" Wanda spoke from behind her brother, her voice impatient, and Winnie dragged her gaze back up to Pietro's.

"Oh right," she whispered, "Can you see this?" He frowned, his eyes not leaving hers.

"Wha-?" He began, but Winnie smiled wickedly and cut him off.

"See _this_ ," she spoke loudly and angrily, startlingly him, and then released the explosive burst of power she'd been holding back the entire time; she had the information from them she wanted, and her ruse was complete now. Nomad 2.0 or not, Wanda was not a match. Winnie's vision went white as nearly every pore in her body let forth a rush of energy. She felt euphoric release in every muscle.

When the blinding light left her eyes, Ultron was a pile of broken parts, Wanda was laying crumpled against a wall on the other side of the room, and Pietro was flat on his back, behind a nearby table, junk and debris all over and around him. She hadn't destroyed the building, she didn't want to do that. Her goal had been incapacitation, and she considered herself successful, though she had very purposefully tried to aim terrible violence in Ultron's direction.

Winnie stepped away from the wall she'd been pinned to and strode towards Pietro. She considered killing him, and his sister. Winnie eyed Wanda's crumpled form, contemplating the threat someone like that posed. She chuckled; Winnie knew very well the threat someone like Wanda posed. Somehow, despite their current situation, she didn't think the Maximoff siblings were the biggest threat. _I'm not going to be a murderer._

Winnie's gaze shifted to the broken bits that remained of Ultron. Ultron was the threat, of that she felt certain, she just didn't know exactly how he was a threat. Shaking her head, she turned away, crouching down next to Pietro and placing a gentle hand on his forehead. She released a flow of power into his mind easily. _Let us just find out the threat that Ultron carries, then, shall we?_

She caught glimpses of things. Terrible things. Miniature versions of Wanda and Pietro, as terrified children, mourning suddenly and violently, dead parents. A bomb - _Stark Industries?_ A life of hardship and cultivated grudges. A decision to join Hydra.

Loki's staff; the familiar item making her shudder, her stomach roiling. Eerie blue light. Pain, both mental and physical, as Pietro lay strapped to an operating table, listening to his sister screaming in agony in another room; the price of their grudge.

Glimpses of a fight, in the forest surrounding this building; she caught snatches of her friend's faces in this man's mind. _The Avengers were fighting these guys too?_ Her own face appeared, pulling her hood off again outside. She looked a lot prettier in his mind's eye than she actually thought she was. _Maybe blonde does suit me._ It wasn't hard to discern the tenor of his thoughts when he'd first laid eyes on her. Surprised pleasure, admiration, slight fear, but mostly a stunned kind of appreciation.

Shaking away his stupid crush, she focused, driving a deeper wedge into his mind. Pietro groaned, his back arching as he twisted on the ground, but Winnie had to know, had to know what their end game was.

Ultron. Image after image of Ultron. She couldn't make out all the things Ultron was saying in Pietro's mind, but she understood their meaning: Ultron sought power and domination. It sought to right wrongs. This appealed to Pietro.

Winnie wanted details and ground her teeth in frustration when Pietro's mind only revealed another image of her own face. He was intrigued by her power, deeply appreciative of her appearance, and thoroughly enjoyed her general ferocity when she spoke in his mind's eye. "Goddammit," she muttered, glaring at him in frustration, "Get over it, buddy."

A picture of Steve's shield filled Pietro's mind. Ultron mingled over the image. "Strongest metal on Earth," it said, "Indestructible. Perfect." Horror flooded Winnie's very bones as Pietro's mind showed her Ultron's greatest hope: an endless army of itself – tall, strong, silver, menacing. There was a wisp of something else, a grand plan "the big reveal", said the Ultron in Pietro's mind, but there was no more information to explain what the "big reveal" was going to be. Ultron hadn't told Pietro and Wanda. Again the image of the indestructible army. Winnie flinched from the imagined violence the image contained.

She scrambled to her feet, breaking the connection with the speedster. Winnie paused to again consider killing the siblings that lay unconscious in the room with her. She reached her hand out towards Wanda, but couldn't do it. She had seen enough to understand that these two were Hydra guinea pigs, like she was; Wanda was the way she was because Hydra had likely been attempting to recreate Winnie. _Besides, the real threat is Ultron._ She recalled it saying it was more than just one body. She had destroyed this body and hoped that would buy her enough time to get help.

 _I have to contact Tony._


	2. Chapter 2

***** And chapter two – enjoy! *****

She was nervous. The last time she had spoken to Tony, it had ended badly. He was understandably upset about Bucky being his parents' killer. She'd tried to explain it to him, explain how it was for Bucky – he was nothing but a programmed machine under Hydra's absolute control. When he utterly refused to listen to her, she couldn't blame him, not really. The loss of his friendship hurt, but she would never not take Bucky's side. And he would never be able to stomach the presence of the man who murdered his parents. She knew Tony was also hurt that she couldn't take his side.

She still remembered his phone number. At least, she remembered the number to the phone he had told her to call. He had a lot of phones. Winnie shook her head, trying to focus as the phone rang and rang. Sokovia still had pay phones, and as she stood in the dingy phone booth, she was vividly reminded of a pay phone call she'd made to the elder Stark oh so long ago. _That was another lifetime, stop thinking about horrible things._

The phone rang and rang. Winnie ran a finger idly over a small crack in the side of the wall and prayed that Tony still carried this phone around with him.

"Hello?" A suspicious sounding female voice answered on the other end and Winnie had a moment to realize it wasn't Pepper, before she automatically responded with a confused sounding "Hello?" of her own. There was silence for a long moment before the voice on the other end spoke impatiently again.

"Who is this?"

Winnie swallowed, unwillingly to give that information out, "Who is _this?_ "

"You called me, I don't need to answer that."

Winnie took a deep breath, "Where is Tony?"

There was a beat of silence, and then, "Dammit." Winnie pulled the phone away from her head and stared at the handset in confusion for a moment.

"Did you dial a number for Tony Stark?" The voice asked her.

"Of course I did," Winnie responded smartly, "Who the hell is this?"

"He's forwarded his phone to me again," the voice griped on the other end of the line, "I've told him I'm not his secretary."

"Look," Winnie began uncertainly, "Can you please just put me through to Tony?"

"Not until I know who I'm talking to," the woman shot back, "Ready to tell me yet?"

"What are you? Some kind of gatekeeper?" Winnie snapped, "Put. On. Stark." There was silence as a reply.

"At the very least put on Pepper," Winnie attempted negotiation, growing so irritated with this mystery woman that she wished the woman was in her line of sight so she could smack her with something.

"I don't think so," the woman responded crisply, "You can't just call up Tony Stark and expect to speak to him just like that."

"Look lady, I've called this number so many times I could call it in my sleep," Winnie spoke in a heated growl, "And I _always_ reach Tony directly. So put him on the phone."

"Not until I know who I'm speaking with," the voice responded easily.

"I don't know you, I'm not divulging secret business to a veritable stranger!" Winnie cried, "This is Avenger business, not for a secretary or assistant!"

"I'm neither of those things."

"Can you put me through to Jarvis then? He'd recognize my voice in an instant," Winnie attempted to negotiate again, knowing this woman had all the power right now.

"No," the woman responded, "I can't."

"For Pete's sake," Winnie grumbled, turning her mouth from the receiver and pressing a fist to her forehead, trying to gather some patience and strength.

"Just tell me who this," the woman said quietly.

"I _can't_ ," Winnie pressed, "You work for Tony, you know what he deals with, and why I can't give _you_ that information unless I know _who you are_." There was steady breathing from the other end of the line and finally a long sigh.

"This is Maria Hill," the woman introduced herself, "Now who the hell is this?" Winnie felt weak with relief.

"Oh Maria! I didn't recognize your voice, otherwise I would've… dear lord, why didn't you just tell me to start with? And why do you have Tony's phone?" Winnie rushed forwards, a horrible idea occurring to her, "Oh no, is something wrong? Did something happen to Tony? Is he ok? Why isn't he with his phone? What's going on?"

Maria was silent for a long moment, and then, with dawning realization in her voice, "Winnie?"

"Yes!" Winnie nearly shouted, looking around immediately afterwards, to make sure no wayward Sokovians heard her.

"I'll get Tony," Maria told her firmly. The line was quiet for a long few minutes and Winnie felt like her stomach was in knots. She was wracked with dread about what may or may not be wrong with Tony.

"Stark here," his voice cut across the line smoothly and sharply and Winnie's eyes slid shut.

"Tony?" She asked, "Are you alright? Why does Maria have your phone? You said I could always reach you at this number! I was afraid something terrible had happened to you!"

"Winnie?" He asked, his voice filled with disbelief, "What's wrong kid?"

"Tony, I –" She began to explain but there was loud shuffling and sounds of a struggle on the other end of the line; she could hear Tony snapping at someone in frustration.

"Tony? _Tony?_ " Winnie yelled into the phone, terrified that he was in danger and being attacked as she stood helpless on the other side of the world.

"Winnie?" The voice that spoke next was not Tony's, and Winnie felt like all of her muscles went slack at once, and she sagged against the wall of the phone booth.

"Steve," she spoke in such a weak and pathetic tone of voice that she felt her cheeks burn a little in embarrassment. Winnie cleared her throat.

"Steve, I need to talk to Tony," she pushed forward, her heart hurting with how badly she wanted to talk to Steve, how badly she wanted to reach through the phone and hug him, "I'm sorry, Steve. I… I just have to talk to Tony right now."

"Win, please – are you alright, at least?" Steve asked her, his voice heavy with concern. Winnie took in a deep breath and nodded, even though he couldn't see her.

"I am, Steve, I promise I'm alright," she urged him, "Put Tony on." The line shuffled for a long moment and then Tony was back.

"Hey kid," he spoke in a gruff voice and Winnie winced a little. _I've really hurt everyone in all kinds of ways._

"What's going on? Why are you breaking your silence here? You know we could trace you in half a second, right?" Tony's voice was still sounding a lot more gruff than she was used to; he sounded inconvenienced, if she was being honest with herself. Winnie looked around in concern again, realizing that she would not have long to run after this call, before he sent out the Iron Legion or something, to track her.

"I met Ultron tonight," she said flatly, cutting right to the chase. She was rewarded with quiet and then the quiet took on a strange echo-y sound.

"Say that again, Win," Tony's voice urged her, sounding like he was speaking into a speaker now.

"Am I on speaker phone?" She asked carefully. The response was a chorus of "yes" from many different voices. She swallowed and repeated herself, "I met Ultron tonight." The room on the other end of the phone exploded into questions.

"Where are you?" _Natasha?_

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" _Steve._

"What did he tell you?" _Clint?_

"Did he have Loki's scepter?" _Thor?_

"How many of him were there?" _Bruce?_

"Which do you want to answer first?" Tony's voice asked her wryly. Winnie sighed, irritably.

"I hate speaker phones, Tony," she said evenly.

"Everyone does, answer the questions," Tony shot back immediately. Winnie gazed around herself, taking in the dark streets around her. It was raining again and she was growing a little leery of being in one place this long; the Maximoff siblings and a new Ultron could show up if they woke up soon enough.

"I'm in Sokovia," she began, ignoring the rumblings on the other end of the line, "He didn't hurt me, I destroyed two of him, and I didn't see _that_ scepter anywhere, not that I hung around long enough to really look around the place. He didn't tell me what he plans to do, but I read Pietro's mind and –"

"You can read minds now?" Clint's voice came through the line, startled and crackling.

"Pietro _Maximoff?_ " Steve nearly shouted, "Was his sister there? You need to watch out for her, Win, she's not –"

"I know! I know!" Winnie nearly yelled, "Guys, please." There was silence. "Ultron killed a bunch of police officers here, he's at the castle –"

There was more scuffling and yelling on the other end, and she heard multiple people speaking about the "things" Hydra left behind, things that weren't cleared out yet.

"Winnie," Tony's voice finally cut through them all, "I want you back here, we need you here."

"No," Winnie replied instantly, "I'm not coming near any of this, I just wanted to tell you what I knew."

"Winnie he wants to destroy everything," Steve added reasonably, "He's a danger to more than just us, more than just Sokovia. We can't figure out his next move and he's cut us off over here, we're working blind." Winnie didn't reply, her stomach twisting in knots.

"I can't," she answered him, her voice faltering.

"Winnie, please, we'll leave you alone afterwards, you have my word," Steve told her earnestly.

" _Steve_ ," Natasha's curt voice hissed and Winnie stared at the hand set again. She knew what Natasha meant. He was promising something he couldn't.

"He's in Sokovia, but I won't be, good bye," Winnie hung up immediately, cutting off the protests beginning on the other end. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the phone booth. "Dammit," she whispered to herself, a couple of tears of self-pity leaking from her eyes. She desperately wanted to go to them, to help, to join them, but she knew it was stupid to even consider it. Ultron was a problem for now, but Hydra was always the bigger threat. She had to keep that thought front and center.

There was a harsh, metallic knocking noise on the phone booth's door behind her and Winnie spun to it in a panic. She gasped sharply when she saw the bright eyes of a robot on the other side and immediately raised her hands towards it, throwing it across the street. She shoved the phone booth door open and bolted, running down the street, her head whipping back and forth as she tried to stay alert for sightings of either Maximoff.

 _You idiot, you took too long on the phone._ She pounded her feet against the pavement, determined to get away without a fight this time. There was a strange whooshing noise to the air and a heavy metal _thunk_ as the robot landed solidly, directly in front of her. Winnie pin-wheeled her arms, trying to stop her crazed forward rush, but still hurried headfirst into the huge automaton in her path, bouncing off it and falling to the wet ground behind her.

She gazed up at the thing before her and then closed her eyes, shaking her head. "Dammit Tony," she said slowly, feeling the wet from the pavement soak through her pants, "I should've known you weren't there. How soon did you leave Stark Tower?"

He reached Iron Man's hand towards her and she grasped it, letting him pull her to her feet. Winnie brushed the debris and dirt from her butt as she stared up at the face on the suit. "Pretty much immediately," Tony's voice said.

She peered at the face for a long moment. "Are you actually in there?" She asked him, "Or is this just an empty suit?" The figure before her shrugged. "Wouldn't you like to know?" He asked her.

Winnie backed away from the suit, but its red hand gripped her own more tightly. She glared down at its grip and then back up at the face. "Tony," her tone was quiet, but a clear warning, "Let go."

"Can't do that," he replied easily. Winnie took a deep breath, looking up to the sky briefly, as if seeking strength from the wetness falling into her face.

"Don't make me hurt you," she whispered, finally looking back at the face on the suit. The hand gripping her pulled her forwards a couple of steps, until she was standing nearly chest to chest with it. "You don't know if I'm even in here or not," he told her boldly, "You hurt the tin man, then you hurt might hurt your old pal."

"You're stalling," she replied, the realization growing on her. He shrugged. "Maybe, you know that the jet can go pretty fast when it needs to," his reply was conversational. Winnie pulled one more time, and gave consideration to heaving Iron Man across the street again, Tony or no Tony.

"Winnie," he urged her, "Please, we need you to come in – this is bigger than you think." Her arm was stretched out in front of her, hand still caught in his grip. She took a deep breath and thought back to Pietro's mind. The anger there, and the anger she'd picked up from his memory of Ultron.

The air around them began to swirl and blow heavily and she knew that the jet would be here in only a moment or two. _Make a decision._

"I can leave whenever I want, however I want," she equivocated, trying to keep the tremor of fear from her voice. Tony released her hand and her arm dropped limply back to her side. He nodded. "Sure thing," he promised her blithely.

She read the lie in his words, just as she had in Steve's. Shaking her head, she peered up at the face again, eyes narrowed. "I _can_ leave whenever I want," she promised him, her tone laden with meaning: _you can't stop me, no one can_.

The jet landed behind her, on the dark, empty, rain-slicked street they stood in. She stared up at the Iron Man suit before her, until she heard the shushing noise of the door on the jet opening and the walkway lowering.

" _I_ won't try to stop you," Tony spoke from behind her and she turned away from the empty suit she'd been speaking with, to see him standing in the doorway on the jet. Glancing once back over her shoulder, Winnie began to walk towards where Tony stood. She was glaring at him. He held both hands up in an apology.

"I know, I know," he told her, "Pepper hates the empty suit trick, too." Winnie paused at the end of the walkway, hesitating to step aboard. Part of her was desperate to launch herself the couple steps forward, to throw herself at Tony in a hug, to let him take her back to her friends, to Steve. She had been _so_ alone. Winnie met his dark, laughing eyes and held them seriously.

"Tony," she warned him, "Every one of you is danger as long as I'm with you. All of you, and everyone you know and love. The whole mission is in danger. If Hydra catches wind that I'm back with the Avengers –"

Tony held up a hand to stop her. "We've taken care of a lot of them," he spoke confidently, "And I don't think you know this, but your boyfriend has been on a bit of a rampage when it comes to all things Hydra." Winnie gaped at him, open mouthed, not sure what to say. She was only able to mutter Bucky's name once, making Tony shake his head.

"Your hideous taste in men notwithstanding," he began, not trying to hide the disgust in his voice at her obvious heartsickness over Bucky, "Hydra's been hit where it hurts and is off licking its wounds."

Winnie took a deep breath and stalked up the walkway into the jet, storming past Tony. She listened as he closed the doorway behind her, and crossed her arms over her chest, not turning to look at him. He paused when he walked by her, looking over his shoulder at her.

She thought she saw regret in his dark eyes, but clenched her jaw tighter, looking away. He couldn't forgive Bucky, still hated Bucky, and didn't see that it hadn't been Bucky's choice to kill his parents. He couldn't forgive her loyalty to Bucky, she knew that, and on some level she understood that, but Bucky meant everything to her and she couldn't swallow someone despising him the way Tony did. Especially over something that he'd had no ability to prevent.

"For what it's worth," he spoke slowly, "I do miss you." She looked over at him quickly, letting the myriad of emotions she was feeling play over her face, before she swallowed jerkily and looked away again. "Me too," she replied stiffly.

To give herself something to do, she turned away from Tony, removing her backpack and setting it on a shelf, letting him head to the cockpit, giving the orders to head back to New York. As Tony busied himself up front, Winnie pulled off her dripping jacket, laying it over the back of a passenger chair. She pulled off her sodden sweatshirt's hood and then yanked it off too, hanging it on another chair.

"Holy shit, kid," she heard Tony say from behind her, "Nice hair." She turned to him, smiling wryly. His eyes were comically widened as he goggled at her damp blonde hair. She gestured vaguely at her head.

"Disguise," she offered by way of explanation. Tony nodded, his eyes not leaving her head. "It's a change," was all he said. Winnie waved him towards a couple of the empty passenger chairs not currently being used as drying lines.

"Tell me everything," she demanded bluntly once they were seated. Tony's eyes met hers, a dark eyebrow going up.

"It all started with the joystick of destiny," Tony began.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Winnie watched Stark Tower get larger and larger as they approached it. She wasn't happy to be here. She didn't want to be here. She understood though, especially now. _Artificial Intelligence,_ she thought in chagrin, shooting Tony an irritated glance, _What the hell was he thinking?_ The landing bay doors opened and she immediately spotted Steve, standing near the doorway leading into the tower.

"Ready?" Tony asked her, climbing up from the pilot's chair he'd been occupying. Winnie glanced over at him and nodded. She followed him slowly to the doors, waiting as they opened and the walkway lowered. Tony strode out first and Winnie hesitated, running her hands nervously through her hair. She wasn't afraid of her friends. She was afraid _for_ them. Reinhardt's words haunted her: _Hydra will always find you._

Taking a settling breath, Winnie walked down the ramp and out into the landing bay. Steve still stood by the door and she saw his eyes widen a little at her hair. "Winnie," he said in greeting, "You're here." Winnie nodded and walked towards him, stopping cautiously a few feet away.

"Tony told me everything on the plane," she informed him awkwardly, "But you're all missing some information." Steve nodded, his eyes locked on hers.

"Win, I've –"

"Steve, you –" They both stopped, smiling a little at each other. He took a hesitant step towards her, his hands clenching into fists and then opening again, at his side.

"I missed you," he told her honestly, a smile on his face. Winnie couldn't help but smile back at him. "I should've gone with you," he continued, the regret so palpable in his voice that it made her chest hurt, "I never should have sent you guys alone to SHIELD, I should've have gone with you. If I'd been there maybe you wouldn't have… maybe Bucky would still –"

Winnie cut him off, throwing herself at him. Bucky's name in Steve's soothing voice broke something in her and she clutched him in a tight hug. Steve's arms came up to squeeze her in return. "Winnie, I'm so sorry," he whispered into her hair, "Please know, I never stop thinking about it."

"No Steve, no," she responded firmly, pushing away from the hug momentarily, her hands still gripping him, "This is on me, it always will be, it always has been." He shook his head sadly, disagreeing with her sentiment mutely. She shook him a little bit.

"Dammit Steve," she snapped at him, "This was never your fault, stop stealing the blame."

"Stop hogging the blame," he replied calmly. They stared at each other for a long moment before she fell back into the hug, squeezing him for all she was worth.

"I missed you, too," she reassured him, "More than you could ever know." They stood in a quiet embrace for a few moments longer before someone cleared their throat from the doorway behind them.

"We have things to discuss if you two don't mind," Natasha's sharp voice cut through their reunion and Winnie winced. She parted from Steve, looking up at his face for a moment, trying to gain strength from his familiar, comforting presence, before she stepped past him and faced Natasha.

Her hair was shorter, making the red more vivid, and Winnie fought to keep her face straight, to keep the immediate _I missed you_ from her tongue.

"For the record, I think you being here is a terrible idea," Natasha told her flatly. Winnie nodded. "Agreed," she responded. Natasha's lips twitched, but her brow drew down.

"You make one aggressive move towards any of us and I'll put you down," Natasha threatened. Winnie nodded again. "I understand," she replied evenly, "You need to understand something, though." Natasha flickered up an eyebrow expectantly. Winnie took that as all the go-ahead she needed.

"I was afraid of myself before, I lacked control because I couldn't control something I was in denial about," Winnie explained, trying to stand tall, "But I never intended to hurt anyone. I don't do that anymore, I've got control of this now."

Natasha cocked her head to the side and said nothing. Winnie swallowed and took a step closer to her former friend. "I never meant to hurt you," she replied quietly, "You, or Sam, or… or… him." She thought she saw the slightest bit of remorse slide through Natasha's eyes, before they went hard again.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you. But I won't apologize for what I am," Winnie spoke this part in a voice made of concrete, "I'm ashamed of my actions, ashamed that it took so long for me to realize what this ability is all about, but I can't apologize for what it's made me." Natasha stood up a little straighter, but still didn't respond.

"I have complete control now," Winnie spoke quietly, but her eyes never left Natasha's harsher blue ones, "So you can either trust me and forgive me, or not, but I'm not apologizing again." She felt like the blue eyed gaze assessing her was going to rip her apart in its intensity, but she held her ground.

Finally, Natasha nodded curtly, and gestured at the hallway behind herself, speaking tersely, "We have things to discuss." Natasha turned on her heel and strode away, leaving Winnie standing rather limply, the encounter having taken a lot out of her. Steve's hand on her shoulder made her leap a foot in the air.

"Sorry," he said softly, "Are you alright?" She turned her head and looked up at him, nodding.

"She's not going to forgive me," Winnie stated, knowing the truth even without Steve to confirm it. He shrugged.

"I think you scared the hell out of her, back at that place," Steve was trying to be delicate, "You and I, we get the weird, but I think our level of weird is just a little much for other people sometimes." Winnie smiled at him ruefully as they both made their way out of the landing bay, following down the hallway Natasha had gone down.

"I appreciate your efforts at including yourself in my weird," she told him, a small laugh following her words. He bumped her shoulder with his arm and shot her a sunny Steve-smile. "Anytime," he replied.

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Winnie was greeted in the lab exuberantly, getting mauled by a rough Thor-hug, followed by a gentler Bruce-hug. Clint clapped her soundly on the back a couple of times. When everyone had settled down, Winnie felt all eyes on herself.

"I know what they want," she began, her voice steady, "I saw it Pietro's head." She met Steve's eyes briefly, before gesturing towards his shield, which lay in the corner. "Vibranium," she delivered the one word heavily and watched as everyone's eyes widened with the realization of what that meant.

"Ultron," she continued, "It – he, told me that he was more than just one body, and I saw in Pietro's mind that he wants an army of himself, all made of vibranium. There's something more, something that Ultron told them would be the 'big reveal', but he hasn't told them what that means, so Pietro couldn't tell me."

"How would he even get enough vibranium for that?" Steve asked harshly, his eyes cutting towards Tony, "I thought your father said he got the last of it."

All eyes were on Tony as he replied, "Dad said a lot of things."

"Wakanda," Bruce muttered, "That's where it he found it, right?" Everyone turned to look at Banner now, and he shrugged at the confused looks on their faces. "What?" He asked, "I read history books, Wakanda is where vibranium comes from."

"So where the hell would Ultron even find any? Do we need to go to Wakanda?" Winnie demanded. Tony began pacing. "No," he muttered, "If Ultron has access to all of Hydra's files, he'll have a much better way of getting vibranium, and he'll find some that has already been sourced."

"How?" Steve asked brusquely, taking a step towards Tony, "Where?" Tony waved a hand towards the boxes in the room. Winnie raised her eyebrows at the sight. "What is that?" She asked, gesturing at the boxes herself.

"We don't have any access to any electronic files," Natasha explained flatly, "This is the old school source." Winnie shook her head as they regarded the boxes for a moment. Winnie turned to Tony impatiently. "What do you mean he'll find the vibranium in these boxes?" She asked him.

Tony looked back at her, meeting her eyes for a moment. "Ulysses Klaue," he responded. Winnie's nose wrinkled, but Steve responded. "Is that a name? A person?" He demanded of Tony. He received a nod in response.

"He worked with Hydra, on and off," Tony answered, "I met him a few times… before."

" _Before?"_ Bruce asked him incredulously. Tony nodded, his eyes narrowing. "Yes, before I started, you know, avenging," Tony's response was met with more than one grimace, but it was Thor who approached the boxes first. He tore the lid off one.

"And you believe the way to this Klaue is in these?" His question boomed across the room, and Tony nodded. Silently, they all descended on the boxes, everyone hurriedly scanning them until they hit pay dirt.

Steve held up a file, shaking it a little. "Here we go," he announced. It only took a few minutes from there for Klaue's location to be sussed out, and shortly thereafter, at Steve's direction, they were all "suiting up".

"I don't have any of my things," Winnie offered lamely, trailing down the hallway after Natasha. She received a blue eyed glare in response and shut her mouth. In a dressing room of sorts, Natasha tore open a wall compartment, revealing all manner of uniforms, all of them bearing the Avenger's 'A' on them.

"I can't wear these things," Winnie spluttered, feeling her face turning red. She turned a panicked look to Natasha who was grimly dressing in her Widow gear.

"Thought you weren't going to feel shame for who you were anymore," Natasha huffed, cramming her arms into her jumpsuit. Winnie eyed the very tight, very stretchy, gear before her, all in shades of grey and blue. "Shame for what I can do, I still have a sense of decency," Winnie replied lamely. The outfits before her were as fitted looking as Natasha's Black Widow suit, and Winnie's ears burned with a vision of herself in them.

Natasha rounded on her, zipping up her jumpsuit with a hard look on her face. "You can't be as effective in civilian crap," Natasha told her roughly, "Put the clothes on, Nomad, or go back to your hole in the ground. I won't have you blowing a mission, this time because your pants were too long, or your sleeves got in the way."

Taking a deep breath, Winnie began to take off the filthy clothes she'd been running around in since she first encountered Ultron. She couldn't even remember if that was today or the day before, she was feeling a little out of time. That thought made her laugh, and suddenly she didn't care about the clothes anymore. _You've faced worse than this._

A few minutes later and she emerged from the dressing room, clad in the extremely fitted long sleeved top and pants. She had on black combat boots; there had been an entire closet full of the durable, versatile footwear. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She caught a glance at herself in the reflective surface of the glass that lined the hallway and stopped still for a moment. A stranger stared back. She never bared this much of her shape in clothing, ever; she was completely covered, but it fit her like a second skin. The blonde hair was enough to make her look twice, just to be sure it was her face that was reflected back at her.

"You look fine," a voice surprised her, and Winnie's eyes darted up to the reflection of Maria Hill, who had approached quietly. Winnie smiled at her. "Sorry about the attitude on the phone earlier," Winnie offered. Maria smiled at her, and shrugged.

"They're lucky to have you back," Maria told her blandly, glancing down briefly at a tablet in her hands. She moved one of her hands to a pocket, pulling out a small box and handing it to Winnie.

"You don't have your goggles anymore," Maria explained when Winnie opened the box and found the small ear piece inside, "Need to stay in touch." Winnie gazed back at Maria, not certain what to say; she hadn't had hardly any contact at all with the woman since SHIELD had fallen, though she had seen her quite a bit back when they both SHIELD agents.

"For now," Winnie replied, stuffing the ear piece in, "After this is all done, the ear piece comes out for good." Maria nodded, understanding what Winnie was saying. "No one will stop you," Maria told her firmly, before turning on her heel and striding away.

In a bit of a daze, Winnie wandered back to the landing pad, and climbed aboard the jet. The doors began to shut behind her as soon as she was on board. All eyes were on her for a moment, before everyone looked away.

"The suit suits you," Steve told her, looking away almost as soon as he'd seen her. Winnie's eyebrows came together. "I look like a stranger," she replied evenly, pushing past him. She knew that his seeing her in clothing like this made Steve uncomfortable, he preferred her typical reserved self a little more, she knew. Winnie paused for a moment to wonder what Bucky would make of her current outfit. She figured he'd probably want to drag her off somewhere private, immediately. The thought brought a small smile to her mouth, and she lifted her fingers to her mouth, to lightly cover the expression.

"You know it's ok to smile, right?" Clint told her under his breath as he brushed past her, buckling himself into a passenger seat. Winnie turned a stunned look towards him. "What?" She asked, not understanding. Clint waved a hand around himself.

"This all really sucks," he explained lightly, "But you can still smile." Winnie didn't know what to do besides smile at that, so she did. Lowering herself into the seat, she felt the pull as the jet took off. Once she was buckled in, Winnie let her eyes trail over everyone. It was familiar and comforting to be back with them all, though her heart thudded sickly at the possible danger she was putting them in. _Relax, no one knows you're with them, the word will_ not _get out._

There was quiet chatter as they flew, but mostly they all seemed to be steeling themselves for what lay ahead, though Winnie knew there was no way to predict what awaited them at Klaue's location.

"Ok, best case scenario, we get there ahead of Ultron and his companions," Steve spoke loudly as he stood behind the pilot's chair, which Tony was currently occupying, "We take the vibranium that's there and we leave."

"That's great, and when Ultron comes after us looking for it, how do we stop him?" Natasha asked casually, "We did such a great job last time." Steve shot her a dirty look, but then waved a hand to Winnie.

"She can stop him, stop all three of them," he offered. Winnie began shaking her head, a feeling of being trapped descending upon her at those words.

"Steve, no!" She cried, loudly. Clint flinched a little next to her and turned startled eyes to her. She took a deep breath, to settle herself. "I can't protect it forever," Winnie continued, her tone a little more calm, "They'll never stop coming for it, and I can't always stand guard over it – not to mention the fact that you'll need me to help stop Ultron, to stop all of them, and who guards the vibranium then?"

Steve rolled his eyes, but had no response for her. "I could guard this vibranium," Thor's voice rumbled deeply, and they all turned to regard him, "I can bring it back to Asgard for safe keeping." The jet was silent for a few long moments, as they all considered that option.

"I like it," Natasha responded first, "No one's getting their hands on it there."

"I don't think vibranium belongs anywhere but in the hands of the Avenger's," Tony piped in, not turning away from the controls.

"I am an Avenger," Thor responded reasonably. Winnie nodded at that, and then narrowed her eyes. Tony was not stupid, why would he oppose its safekeeping, unless… "You want to use it for yourself!" She burst out accusingly, glaring hard at the back of Tony's head.

He twitched in his seat and turned around to shoot her an offended look. "Stay the hell out of my head," he warned her, "I don't care how much crap you toss around, but you keep your shit out of my head." Winnie's jaw clenched together so hard it squeezed her teeth painfully and she looked away from him, feelings hurt.

"I would never do that," she told him quietly. The jet was again quiet as the discomfort of the moment smothered any further conversation.

"Tony, that vibranium doesn't belong in anyone's hands, it needs to disappear," Bruce finally said, calmly. Tony grumbled something and turned back to the controls. Winnie felt a hard lump of hurt forming in her chest, and looked down at her hands. _You're just a monster and a freak to them now, none of them really trust you._ Tony had meant so much to her for so long, now knowing he was disgusted by some part of her was like a knife in the back.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and knew it would be Steve before she even looked up. He smiled down at her comfortingly for a moment and she struggled to even lift the corners of her mouth in response. "The vibranium, if we get it, goes to Asgard," Steve's tone was final, like a door closing. No one argued.

"We haven't talked about the worst case scenario yet," Clint spoke up, "We get there and it's gone. All of it, already taken by Ultron and his pals." Winnie winced a little at that. Steve was slow in responding this time.

"If that happens, then we hunt them down and take it back," he instructed them. His hand squeezed Winnie's shoulder and she looked up at him again from her seat. His eyes locked on hers. "You could find them, right?" He asked her, his voice soft. She took a deep breath and shrugged with one shoulder.

"I've never, uh, cast a net that large, so to speak," she explained lamely. Curiosity was on everyone's face, so she cleared her throat and continued, haltingly, "Sometimes, if I sit quietly, and really focus, I can feel everything happening around me, but usually I only do that to help me move around, to run." No one said anything and Winnie interpreted their silence as horror and disgust for her ability. She reached for the buckles on her seat, her hands fumbling at them stupidly. She felt tears pressing against the backs of her eyes, making her vision watery.

Steve brushed her hands away and easily unclipped her seat buckles for her. Winnie couldn't look at him. She pushed past him and stood in one of the side alcoves, her back to everyone. "Sometimes, I would get somewhere and wonder if Bucky was there, or if Steve was nearby, so I'd just search for them, in my head, but I never felt them, or found them," she spoke in a frozen voice, her throat clamping down hard to keep the stupid, frustrated, hurt tears from her voice, "Basically, I've never pushed further than one or two towns."

Silence again. "That's amazing," she heard someone say, and turned to see Bruce standing a couple feet behind her, "Do you know how much good you could do with an ability like that? Missing people, lost artifacts, sussing out terrorists." His dark eyes met hers and he smiled warmly at her. "Your ability could do so much good."

Winnie felt a blush rise to her cheeks and turned away, shrugging again. "I'm not saying I wouldn't try to find them, I just don't want all the hopes, all the plans, hung on me," she clarified.

"We're a team," Steve spoke encouragingly from behind her, "It's never all about one person; we do things together."

" _We do things together_ ," Tony spoke in a mocking voice from the controls and this time they all, Winnie included, turned to look at him, "Jesus, Cap, get a grip, sometimes it's _all_ about one person. In this case, she," he pointed at Winnie without turning to look at her, "Will likely be the best, and only, course."

Winnie felt the clawing, choking sensation of claustrophobia closing in on her, her own horror at that vision making her want to exit the jet and her skin. Before anyone could leap to her defense, Natasha's dry voice interjected.

"I think you've all jumped to the wrong 'worst case' scenario here." Like a ping pong game, everyone turned to the next player, regarding Natasha with astonishment.

"What could be worse than Ultron getting what he wants?" Bruce asked in disbelief. Natasha eyed them all in turn and then tilted her head slightly to the side. "We get there, and Ultron and his magic cronies are waiting for us," Natasha delivered this tersely, her eyes latching onto Winnie's and not letting go, "They kick the shit out of us, like they've all done in the past, and _then_ they get away with the vibranium."

There was an uproar then, and Winnie stayed out of it, watching people argue and snap at each other ("I am mighty, no mere mortal shall kick my shit."). She shook her head at the growing negativity in the jet, bringing her hands up to the sides of her skull, clenching them into fists as they pressed into her hair.

" _Shut up!"_ She shrieked, startling them all, including herself. She looked up at everyone, her jaw jutting out stubbornly. "They may have kicked the shit out of you guys," she began, letting as menacing a tone as she could muster leak into her voice, "But I've taken them down together _and_ apart." Winnie took two steps forward, standing in the middle of the group.

"If they're there, they'll regret it," she spat, glaring dangerously at Natasha, before directing her glower to them each in turn, "If Ultron has more than one of himself there, then I'll take care of it. If Speedy tries anything, then I'll bat my eyelashes at him and take him down. If _she_ tries anything, then I'll take care of it. I owe her for the shit she put in my head."

Everyone was silent for a long moment, as Winnie stood there, reining in her anger, controlling her breathing. Thor nodded at her, smiling happily. "You are also mighty," he assured her. Winnie couldn't help it, she laughed, and soon everyone else was smiling, excepting Tony.

"Bat your eyes at him?" Natasha asked, approaching her. Winnie turned to her and felt her face burn red. She hadn't meant to say that.

"Um yeah, when I was in his head, I saw that he, well, he thinks I'm…," Winnie couldn't finish and turned her embarrassed face to Steve when he grumbled, "That's not a play we're gonna use."

"Why not?" Natasha shot back, raising her eyebrow at him, "I say the speedster is all hers."

"Great," Winnie and Steve both grouched at the same time. She shot him another look and he laughed, walking towards her, giving her a quick one-armed hug. "Bucky will _kill_ me if I let another guy near you," he muttered. She laughed and then felt her mirth shrivel up, jerking away from him as she did.

"That's not your concern," she told him flatly. Her inner turmoil about Bucky burbled up again, and she drifted away from the strategizing group to get herself under control again.

"They don't know she's with us," Clint was reasoning, as Winnie turned back to them, "I say we get there, fan out, but keep her presence on the down low. No reason to tip our hand." She nodded, liking this idea.

"Or we show up with her right there, let them know who they're about to mess with," Tony spoke over his shoulder, "They're less likely to want to tango with death."

"Tony," Steve spoke in a harsh, warning voice, bristling at the term. Winnie pressed her lips together and pushed past everyone, moving to stand right next to Tony. He looked up at her complacently, no apology on his face.

"Tony," she murmured, her eyebrows drawing together, "Is this because of Puerto Rico? Because of Bucky? Because you _think_ I read your mind?" He shook his head.

"No, this is what you are, kid," he explained, his voice softer than before, "You may have some good tricks up your sleeve, but you also have some nasty stuff in there," he reached a hand towards her, and softly tapped the side of her head, "Embrace it."

Winnie rolled her eyes, exasperated with his shifting moods. Tony's eyebrows went up at the expression, likely expecting her to explode, or cry. She did neither. She leaned towards him and hugged him quickly.

"You make me want to strangle you sometimes," she whispered to him, only half kidding, "You're lucky I like you." Tony surprised her then, laughing. She stood up and eyed him carefully. "I get that a lot," he told her. He paused and she watched his dark eyes carefully. Whatever storm had been there before was gone now.

"Are we alright?" She asked him then, blurting it out without meaning to. He nodded slowly, then stopped, looking away swiftly.

"I want to say yes," he offered, his tone hardening again, "But I guess it's true that you can't help who you love." Winnie stiffened a little, catching the vague reference to Bucky immediately. She nodded curtly. "No, you can't," she responded gruffly, turning away from him.


	3. Chapter 3

***** Enjoy! *****

Winnie eased herself around a corner of the ship they were all moving slowly through. Even from here she could hear Ultron's voice droning. She focused herself, trying to keep her senses open. She knew she wouldn't be able to reach out too far with her ability; the Maximoffs would see it. It irked her because even _she_ couldn't see the blue tendrils they claimed to be able to see.

When she'd explained this to the rest of her group on the jet, the statement had been met with groaning. "Great," Clint griped, "Any other fun tips?" Winnie shook her head, not sure if she should feel guilty or not. _It's not your fault._ Steve echoed that sentiment a second later, and she stared at him for a long moment, knowing in her heart that she did not deserve a human being as _good_ as Steve Rogers as her best friend and greatest supporter.

Winnie focused again, pulling herself from her memories. When she eased around a final corner, she could see Ultron, the Maximoffs at his side, having a terse conversation with a couple of men. She had to clap both her hands over her mouth to keep from gasping when Ultron snatched up one man's arm, roaring, " _Stark is nothing!"_ And then slicing the man's arm off.

 _If that's not a signal to move in, I don't know what is,_ she thought in horror, watching the one armed man stagger backwards, his companion gaping at the scene in utter terror. Winnie looked around, wondering what the hell was taking Tony and the others so long to get into position.

 _He's probably waiting to make a dramatic entrance,_ she thought pessimistically, only to be proven right moments later when Tony indeed zoomed onto the scene. He spoke, dramatically, "Aw junior, you're gonna break your old man's heart." Winnie rolled her eyes, but kept her gaze locked tightly on Wanda, knowing she had to keep track of the girl no matter what.

In typical fashion, things exploded into several different directions all at once, and Winnie was forced to charge into the situation. Unfortunately, at the same time, so did dozens of Ultron's selves, as well as all the mercenaries and smugglers on the ship. Keeping her head down and her defenses up, Winnie raced towards Wanda, heaving out a powerful wave of energy at the other girl as she did. Wanda caught the blast in the side and had only a brief moment to turn her wide, reddened, eyes towards Winnie, before the crest of the energy bore her over the railing she had been standing next to. Winnie had a moment of satisfaction as she heard the meaty thud of Wanda hitting something below, crying out when she did.

She charged towards the railing she'd just tossed Wanda over, only to be body slammed into a wall by one of the Ultrons flying around. Growling, she climbed to her feet, teeth grit against the pain in her side.

"Nomad! You came back for another round," he greeted her gleefully, "We were so sorry that you chose to leave early last time."

"Oh, me too," she vowed in a low voice, before twisting her hand quickly in the air and crushing Ultron's head. She moved towards the railing and cursed in frustration when she saw no one below. She expanded her power around herself, shielding against anything coming towards her, and ran towards Steve, where he was grappling with a huge Ultron.

She reached her hands towards him and spun her wrists inwards, yanking the creature off Steve. She brought her arms up swiftly and the robot rose into the air, where she immediately crushed it. "Thanks," Steve managed, getting to his feet. Winnie nodded and spun towards where a man with a gun was shooting at them; the bullets had been rebounding stupidly off her shield and were annoying her.

She crumpled the gun in his hand and heaved him towards a wall like a broken toy. She heard Steve grunt in pain, and turned in time to see him streak away from her, a blur of motion almost too fast to follow. "Steve!" She cried, raising both hands towards him.

She knew it was Pietro, and wanted desperately to knock him out, but he was moving too quickly, Steve in his grip, and she knew she'd only wind up hurting her friend. _He doubts your resolve._ Winnie narrowed her eyes and brought both hands up to the ceiling, drawing her power from the shield around her to release a concussive shock to the entire room; it would hit her friends, but it would hit their enemies too, and would only stun for a moment.

There was a thud to the air while she did it, and for the briefest of moments, everything froze. Winnie's eyes darted around and she saw Steve, laying crumpled on the ground next to Pietro. Raising a hand to the speedster, she jerked him towards her, pulling him bodily through the air until he was before her. Winnie raised him up just as the effects of the stun wore off and felt him pull against the wall of energy wrapped around him.

"This looks good on you," he told her, a little out of breath, and a flippant smile on his face as he nodded his head towards her new uniform as best as he could. Winnie shook her head, throwing him back towards a wall, and charging after him, removing them both from the central walkway they'd been standing on, slightly more out of sight. She raised him to his feet, pressing him to the wall with her power, and stood a few feet from him.

"Aren't you supposed to be trying to kill me?" She asked him, her voice dry as she eyed him; she couldn't decide whether to kill him or incapacitate him. He smirked at her again, his eyes dipping down to her boots and back up to her messy ponytail. "Such a waste," he responded, his smile making her want to slap him a little, or laugh a little, she wasn't sure.

"Sweet dreams," she told him, before raising a hand towards him, to club him in the head. She never got a chance to though, because a rock hard tendril of red energy wrapped like a vice around her hand and Winnie was pulled back so violently that she slammed down onto the hard metal walkway. She tilted her head and looked behind her to see a furious Wanda standing there.

Wanda raised Winnie to her feet quickly, her brow furrowing with effort. Winnie lashed out immediately fighting off the red energy with her own snarling power. Wanda strained forward, both hands straining and clawed towards Winnie, a heavy bolt of her red power lashing out in Winnie's direction. Winnie's hands snapped up in response and she released a huge explosion of her own power, smashing into Wanda's.

They were each bent into the effort, but Winnie could feel Wanda faltering, and braced herself more firmly, releasing a final blast of energy. Wanda shot backwards across the ground as if it were ice, and was pressed to the far wall. Winnie kept one hand on Wanda, and the other came up to flick Pietro away; she could feel him coiling to spring at her. Thor smashed into Pietro instead, taking care of the distraction.

Winnie refocused on Wanda, approaching her angrily. "You're the real threat here," she growled at the other girl. Wanda's eyes lit up, shining an eerie red as she smiled at Winnie. "We both know you are the real threat," the other girl managed, her smile incongruous with how helplessly Winnie had her pinned.

Tendrils of the red stuff reached for Winnie's head, splitting into thousands of strands as it attacked her. She couldn't get it all off and when it struck her temple, Winnie was assaulted with images. Bucky, happy, sad, and dying. Steve, suffering, calling for her help, dying. Her friends, being torn apart as she stood before them, coiling ropes of her own energy slamming into each of them.

" _Get out,"_ Winnie snarled at Wanda, unable to see past the images the girl put there. Winnie lashed out, trying to slam Wanda senseless, but blind as she was, in mental anguish as she was, she couldn't. Another vision of Bucky, screaming for her, the horror and hurting in his voice slicing at her. In desperation, Winnie tried something she had never done before: she directed her power inwards, attacking Wanda's ability while it was inside Winnie's own head.

It was a mistake. The pain that slammed into every corner of her head, every cell in her body, was indescribably gruesome. Winnie screamed louder than she'd ever screamed before, the cry powered by the raging energy tearing her apart from the inside out. She was dimly aware that she'd fallen to her knees, her head thrown back with the wrenching volume of her shrieks. Winnie's hands clamped to the sides of her head as she tipped to her side, writhing on the ground in agony.

She didn't care about Wanda, or Pietro, or her friends, or Ultron, or even Bucky. In that moment, the crushing pain was all consuming and she would have sold her soul to stop it. She distantly heard a voice above her, felt a hand lift her head from the ground, as her screams continued to roll out unabated. "What did you do to her?" The voice asked. _Pietro_ , a dim part of her recognized. His sister's startled reply was equally as far away to Winnie, who still lay trapped in her private hell, shrieking herself hoarse.

"I did nothing, she did this to herself," Wanda's stunned voice cut through the pain, and Winnie clung to them, to what they meant; she realized that she might have a chance to stop this. Winnie grabbed at the chance, forcing her writhing mind to focus on Wanda's words, even as Pietro ordered his sister to move along. "Keep going, you know what needs to be done," he directed Wanda. A moment later and there was a strange rushing sensation all around her, the wind buffeting against the fire in Winnie's skull.

Focusing on Wanda's words, _she did this to herself_ , Winnie sank every last bit of energy within herself into the task of shutting her own power down, pushing it back, burying it for a moment, to turning it off and _making it stop_. To her unending relief, it worked, and Winnie slumped limply to the floor beneath her body, her screams cutting off abruptly as the pain left her. Winnie lay panting on the cold ground, her limbs and body so weak she knew that wouldn't able to even lift a feather with her ability, let alone sit up on her own and fight.

Pulling her eyelids open was a monumental task. She was startled, in an exhausted, dull kind of way, to see that she was no longer out in the open, she was in some small side room, only partially lit by an emergency light. _How did I get in here?_ Winnie rolled her eyes to her left and found Pietro crouched there. He was eyeing her grimly.

"I should kill you now," he told her matter-of-factly, his accent cutting through the words. Winnie breathed in and out and tried to lift a hand towards him, only raising it a few inches off the ground, before it thumped back down.

"Then… why… don't you… just do it… already," she panted out, the words a monumental effort; if this was it for her, she'd rather not be given time to dwell and dread it. He smiled at her then, a cheeky, wicked smile, one of his eyebrows flicking up.

Pietro climbed to his feet and stepped towards the door. He glanced back down at her, the smile still on his face. "Like I said," he told her, a laugh in his voice, "Such a waste." He winked at her and she had to laugh a little, small and breathless though it was. He disappeared so quickly it felt like all the air was sucked from the room for a moment, in the wake of his exit. Winnie tried to roll to her side and only succeeded in rolling herself over to her stomach, just managing to turn her head so she wouldn't suffocate against the floor.

After effects of the stunning, mind-bendingly painful experience, came roiling through her then, and she felt her entire body start trembling. Winnie's eyes sank closed as she began to cry stunned tears of delayed fear and disbelief. She lay there shaking and crying into the dirty ground until she passed out from sheer exhaustion.

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Steve was feeling more unwell than he ever had since having the serum change him. He'd been shaken after the horrible, heart wrenching, visions the Maximoff girl had given him, but he'd been rocked to his core with fear when, after searching the wreck and ruin of the ship, he and Thor had finally found Winnie, sprawled across the floor on her stomach in a small side room.

He'd hurried past Thor, his breath choking him, as he fell to his knees beside her, burying his fingers in her neck, searching for her pulse. Her heart had been beating, steady and strong. He'd gone limp as a noodle before scooping her up swiftly, her head lolling back off his arm. By the time they made it back to the jet, they were greeted by a grim Clint, Natasha slumped into a chair behind him, her eyes still lost to whatever vivid horror Wanda had visited upon her.

"Where are Banner and Stark?" Thor had boomed out, while Steve moved inside, Winnie still in his arms. He lay her gently on the medical stretcher, tucking a blanket beneath her head. Steve placed a hand on her head protectively, turning to listen as Clint described what was going on in the nearby city.

"I should go help," Thor spoke in a quieter voice, all of them aware of what kind of horror might await him when he reached Tony to help. In a spinning rush, Thor was off, and Steve patted Winnie's head one more time, smoothing a hank of her strange blonde hair off her forehead as he did. He felt the familiar twinge in his stomach, wishing she didn't have to live this life, this way. _You deserved a better life._

"You alright Cap?" Clint asked, closing the walkway door onto the jet. Steve nodded absently, shaking off his memories, and he walked over to Nat, kneeling in front of her. Her eyes looked through him and her brow crinkled in distress. Steve put a hand on her arm and squeezed lightly. "Natasha," he murmured, "It's not real, listen to me, it's not real. Wake up, it's alright, let it go, and wake up."

Clint stood a few feet behind him. "She needs to get out on her own," he informed Steve quietly. Steve rounded on him. "Don't you think I know that?" He snapped, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, "Sorry, Barton." He opened his eyes and saw Clint smiling at him with one side of his mouth.

"Hey, I know what's it like, remember?" Clint joked lightly. Steve grunted in response, unable to muster even a real laugh for the other man.

"They totally owned us back there," Clint muttered then, turning back to Winnie. Barton braced a hand on the edge of the bed she lay on, examining her. "She shouldn't be like this though," Barton continued, glancing over at Steve, "No one else was flat-out like this."

"You heard her screaming," Steve spoke quietly, the pain in his voice ragged and real. Winnie's screaming had reached every corner of the battleground within the ship, making every single thing, living or animatronic, pause. The shrieks had reached an inhuman volume, pealing against his skin in a way that would haunt him for a long time. It was worse when they abruptly stopped.

"Whatever made her scream like that was definitely more than what we got," the regret in Steve's voice was enough that Clint turned to him, grabbing his arm in his hand and shaking him. "And she's still alive, she's here," Clint told him firmly, "Don't forget that. She's a fighter. She's gotta be, right?"

Steve nodded dumbly at him and took the seat nearest to Winnie wearily. They all sat silently, Clint pacing occasionally between the window and his seat, muttering to himself that it was taking too long. When Tony and Thor returned, Bruce supported between the two of them, his skin ashy and sweating, Clint bounced to his feet.

"We need to go," Tony told him immediately, his eyes taking in Natasha, who was now curled up in her seat, her chin resting on her knees, Steve who sat wearily, his arms braced against his legs, and Winnie, still pale and unconscious on the medical bed.

"You got it," Barton grumbled, moving to the pilot's seat and getting them airborne quickly. Tony helped Bruce down to the ground, and Thor dropped himself into the chair on the other side of where Natasha sat. They were all each pictures of shaken misery. Tony divested himself of the Iron Man suit quickly, and made his way over to where Winnie lay.

"Is she alright?" He asked Steve quietly. Steve was carefully watching him, Tony's earlier words on their way over here not forgotten. "Does it matter to you?" He asked Tony wearily, hardly able to meet his eyes; he felt irritated with Tony's concern now, after he'd sucker-punched Winnie with so many cheap shots before.

Tony swallowed and narrowed his eyes at Steve for a long moment, before he sighed and looked away. "Of course it does," he eventually replied, "You of all people should know that." Steve shook his head. "You have a funny way of caring for people, Stark," he muttered.

"I've just had a fresh lesson in what it means to lose control involuntarily, to have your choice taken from you, forcing a good person to do bad things," Tony explained quietly, his eyes darting over to Bruce quickly, "It's given me a new perspective." Steve sat up a little straighter as Tony continued. "What that little witch did to Bruce is no better than what happened to your buddy, Barnes, right? That's the lesson I'm supposed to take from this?" Tony's tone was morose.

Steve got to his feet and walked towards Tony, but stared down at Winnie, picking up her limp hand for a moment. "Bucky had no choice in anything, he couldn't even choose to be himself, and lost himself permanently in the process," Steve told Tony in a flat, serious voice, "Nothing he did or said for 70 years was his choice, it was stripped from him, his actions forced onto him, through a torture you couldn't hope to withstand." Steve lay Winnie's hand down gently and turned to Tony.

"So yeah, maybe that's the lesson you take from this," Steve told him in a quiet, heated voice, "Unless you think it's alright for anyone to blame _him,_ " Steve gestured at Bruce discreetly, "For _anything_ that just happened."

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Winnie awoke inside the jet, her heart beating in her ears. She opened her eyes and let them dart about the space, reassuring herself that she was back with her team, safe. The familiar lightness in chest told her that the jet was airborne and she could hardly gather her scrambled thoughts long enough to wonder where they were going next.

Winnie put a weak hand against the bed next to herself and pushed herself jerkily into a sitting position, groaning slightly when she got a head rush for her efforts. Her movement brought Steve to her side immediately, and she took his offered hand, letting him help her into a seated position. She met his grim eyes for a long moment, taking in the unusual lines of exhaustion around them, the darker circles beneath them. He looked paler than normal.

Her brows came together in concern and she put a hand lightly to the side of his face for a moment. "What happened?" She managed to ask. He opened his mouth to respond, but closed it quickly, nodding with his head behind himself. Winnie tilted slightly to look behind him and felt her mouth drop open at the sight. Natasha was curled into a ball on her seat, her face shell shocked. Thor had his face resting in his huge hand, his eyes covered, with his hammer resting against his leg like an eager dog.

Tony and Clint stood up front, their backs to everyone. _They don't seem worse for wear._ When her eyes snagged on Bruce, her breath caught in her throat. He looked traumatized beyond understanding, wrapped in a blanket as he sat crumpled and huddled on the floor, his face slack with misery, his eyes puffy and pained. Unthinking, Winnie slithered off the table she was sitting on, meaning to immediately go to her friend.

Her legs gave out on her and she sank abruptly to the floor, a startled _"Oh_ " escaping her lips at the surprise of not having her legs cooperate. Steve's arm caught her securely under her arms, holding her up for a moment. Winnie looked back at him briefly, saw the concern for her etched so deeply on his features that it made her grimace. _I never should have come back, look at the pain I cause him._ She hated herself for a moment.

Steve helped her towards Bruce, and she managed to regain a little more feeling in her previously numb legs, lowering herself next to the deeply shaken man. "Bruce?" She asked him quietly. His dull eyes turned to hers and he squinted a little, like she was out of focus.

"You're awake," he murmured hoarsely, "I'm… that's good." Winnie put a hand on his shoulder and leaned towards him, settling herself against his side. "I'm not a safe person to be around," he muttered, making no move to get away.

"Me neither," she replied just as flatly. He turned his head and regarded her solemnly for a long moment. "Guess you're right," he agreed quietly.

"What did she do to you?" Winnie asked him after a long moment of quiet, watching Steve leave her on the floor with Bruce as he lowered himself back into his seat. "She showed me things," he managed to choke out, before he turned away, tucking his chin against his shoulder.

"I can control her, I can stop her, almost entirely, but that thing she can do, getting in our heads…" Winnie's voice trailed off softly, defeat in her tone, "I can't figure out how to stop it. What I tried today nearly killed me." Bruce turned to meet her eyes, a small flicker of pity in his gaze.

"I heard Steve and Tony talking," he told her, "You couldn't have known." Winnie shrugged, examining the end of her messy ponytail. "I need to stop her," she answered softly, "She can't be allowed to do this." Bruce was quiet with her.

Winnie swallowed heavily, her heart twisting a little uneasily at what she was about to say, before she spoke in a slow, haunted voice, "I'm going to have to kill her." Winnie heard, rather than saw, Steve shifting uncomfortably at the words; she couldn't look up from the tail end of her ponytail, which she was fidgeting with in her hands.

"I don't know how else to stop her," Winnie muttered to Bruce. For his part he didn't seem to disagree. "What I did today," he began, a little breathlessly. Winnie turned to him abruptly, overcome with sudden wave of empathy for him, and a desire to help him, and put her hands on the side of his face, making him look at her.

"I can help you," she whispered quietly, knowing that no one, other than maybe Thor or Steve, could hear her. Bruce's brow drew together a little, crinkling in confusion. "I've helped a little, with people who were… upset," she spoke under her breath, her eyes locked on his dark ones. He nodded dumbly, and Winnie closed her eyes, letting a soft, gentle flow of her own power into his mind.

In her head, she now saw her ability for the light blue tendrils she'd been told it appeared as. Lightly, like soft hands stroking his hair, she seeped her energy into his tormented mind. Where before she'd normally changed people's perceptions of the world around them by making them forget her, or agree with her, or do some small bidding, she instead eased his guilt. She carefully replayed what had happened, flinching when she saw and felt what he, or rather, the Hulk, had done at the city they had just left.

Twisting his perception soothingly, she turned it about; what had happened was terrible, but she had him perceive it as the sole doing of Wanda Maximoff, not himself. He hadn't lost control, she had stolen control from him, forcing thoughts and feelings on him in a violating fashion. It was no more his fault, than Winnie's own transformation into what she was now was her fault.

Bruce relaxed under her hands, and Winnie stroked her thumbs lightly across the hair at his temples, easing his mind, soothing his turmoil. _It was bad, but you are not at fault,_ her mind whispered to him, as gently as a lullaby, _she did this to you. She hurt those people. You were the weapon, but she pulled the trigger._

For a brief moment, she felt some of his shame, not just at what he had done, but shame for other things. He felt unworthy to be part of this team. He felt unworthy of Tony's friendship. Unworthy of her own admiration. He felt deeply and wholly unworthy of Natasha's affection. Winnie paused for a moment, surprised; she hadn't caught the emotion between the two of them until now, as she saw it ghosting through his mind.

Winnie extracted herself from his mind, backing out slowly and easily. She told herself that what she had done was akin to bandaging a wound, to stemming a flow of blood that threatened to drain her friend. She told herself that mucking about in Bruce's head was nothing like what Wanda had done; the witch's goal had been to hurt and harm, Winnie's own actions were instead motivated by a desire to do something right with her own ability.

When she opened her eyes, at the same time Bruce did, he managed to smile at her, his eyes easier than they had been a moment before. She looked up when she saw they had a bit of an audience. Steve was watching avidly from his seat, Thor twisted around in his own to eye them.

Tony was standing with his back leaned against the medical table she had lain on earlier. Even Natasha had her sharp eyes fixed on them. Embarrassed, Winnie climbed slowly to her feet, waving off Bruce's muttered thanks, and making her way, head down, over to Steve. She lowered herself to the ground next to his seat, trying to duck out of sight. His hand dropped down onto her shoulder, lightly, and she rested her cheek against it.

"Well," Tony said, a little dumbstruck, before he turned away and busied himself on the far side of the jet. Everyone ignored her then, clearly understanding that she didn't want to be bothered. Winnie sat silently, her arms wrapped around her legs, which she had drawn up to her chest, wishing she was a million miles away, somewhere else, anywhere else, with Bucky.

Everyone remained sunk into their own thoughts and dreams, some of them more vivid and recent than others, though Winnie was glad to see that Bruce at least appeared to be in less distress than before. _See? Something good you did, enjoy it while it lasts._

Clint was on the comm up front, talking to the faint voice of Maria Hill. He mentioned something to Tony about a safe house when the billionaire playboy approached him and asked about their destination, but Winnie paid little mind; Clint and Natasha were pros at hiding and she trusted their ability to find a truly safe place for them to recoup.


	4. Chapter 4

***** Enjoy *****

Winnie stood next to Steve for a long moment at the top of the jet's walkway, surveying the bewildering sight before them. Clint had brought them to a remote and sleepy-looking farm.

" _This_ is a safe house?" She murmured to Steve, glancing up at him. He shrugged and smiled briefly with one half of his mouth. "Who knows? Maybe part of its underground or something," he replied quietly. She saw his eyes shining with something like pleasure at the sight, and knew he was thinking about his old desires in life. As a scrappy trio of city-kids, she, Steve, and Bucky had wanted more than what the city could offer them: she and Bucky had always agreed on a more removed, suburban lifestyle. Steve had always wanted a farm, something about the big skies and expanse of land appealing to him.

They followed Clint up the front stairs, and Winnie flinched a little when he called out, "Honey, I'm home," as they walked through the small foyer into a very homey looking living room. A petite woman, dark-haired, pretty, and _very_ pregnant, came around a corner, a dishtowel in hand, surprise written all over her face. Winnie tried to imagine what they all looked like to her. Tony standing casually, his sharp features trying to hide his bewilderment, Thor next to him, one arm supporting Natasha, the other loosely holding Mjolnir. Bruce next to Natasha, his hair wild, his clothing disheveled, his features mystified and not a little wary.

Winnie was next to Bruce, leaning heavily against Steve, his arm running just below her shoulders, around her back and under her far arm, holding her up in case her legs gave out again. All of them stared back at this normal looking woman in disbelief. She in, turn gaped at them, though even _her_ expression couldn't come close to matching the utter shock on everyone's face when Clint introduced the woman as Laura, his wife.

Winnie tilted her head a little, looking down the line of Avenger's, reading her own feelings on their faces… except for Natasha, who simply smiled as pleasantly as she could muster at Laura, relief on her normally wary features; instinctively, Winnie felt that Natasha was not surprised by this place, or Laura. Children came running into the room next, throwing themselves at Clint with gleeful cries of " _Daddy!"_

Winnie backed a step away from them, immediately. She spent no time around children if she could help it. She had complete control of herself, but children seemed too precious a thing to be risked around her, especially the children of someone she respected and liked as much as Clint. Steve's hand was comforting on her side and when she looked up to him for reassurance, he smiled at her, mouthing, "It's ok."

Thor strode out the door then, and Steve swiftly lowered Winnie to a couch before trotting out after the god. She sat still on the faded, nubby fabric of the squashy couch and pressed her hands flat into the cushion on either side of her hips. Her entire body ached, her head still mildly throbbing with the lingering effects of what had happened today. Her side hurt from where the first robot had heaved her into the wall, and her throat burned mercilessly.

She was feeling rocked by what had happened, not just the lasting images of what Wanda had forced into her head, but the haunting agony of what Winnie's own ability had done to herself. She couldn't understand it. _If it's a part of me, then why did it feel like it was trying to rip me apart?_ She couldn't wrap her mind around the reaction.

She'd never tried directing her power inward, at herself, before, and the fact that she had tried to attack something inside her own head, and instead ended up just attacking herself, made her wonder if her power was somehow not as a part of herself as she had always thought before. _You were able to turn it off though,_ she tried to reason with herself. Winnie rolled her shoulders a little at that thought. _I turned off my attack, just like I would turn off or stop an attack on anything, that's the only reason it stopped hurting. It didn't stop hurting because I ordered it to stop hurting me; I just made it stop attacking._

She felt like she was missing a piece of the puzzle. If her power would attack anyone or anything, including the one who wielded it, then it seemed to her that it wasn't really _hers_ at all. _The power is essentially the Tesseract, right? I wonder if that means the power could somehow be extracted using the Tesseract._ Winnie's mind whirled at the thought, but she knew the Tesseract was locked away on Asgard and she would be unlikely to ever be given the chance. _Besides, who the hell would even know how to use the Tesseract for something like that?_

Winnie let her head droop, trying to take deep breaths. She had promised her group, promised the team, that she would meet and defeat any threat they encountered today; they had counted on her as their strongest line of defense and she had very nearly taken herself out of the equation by trying something foolhardy and ridiculous.

 _He could have left you there, and a stray bullet, or one of those machines, could have taken you out in a heartbeat._ She owed her life to Pietro and that confused her. She understood 'crushes', she remembered the giddy stupidity of them in her seemingly ancient past, but this time Pietro was supposed to be her enemy, he wasn't supposed to be mooning after her. _Maybe you've just got a face to launch a thousand ships off of or something_. She doubted that. She'd seen his mind, she knew he was partly infatuated with her looks, but she wondered if the combination of physical attraction on his part, coupled with what he saw as a similar vulnerability to Wanda, made her appealing to him in a way that made him weak.

 _You could exploit a weakness like that._ She wanted to kill Wanda. It was hard to admit, and she sickened herself with the thought, but after what had happened to Bruce, not to mention the innocent people in the city he'd wreaked havoc in, Winnie knew that killing Wanda was the only choice that made sense, not just for the team, but for everyone. She also knew that killing Wanda would mean killing Pietro, and though she felt no similar yearning for him as he idiotically seemed to have for her, she felt guilty because he'd saved her life when he most definitely should have killed her.

 _He could have left you there._ She wondered if that meant he could be saved. Her mind drifted back to Sam and she smiled briefly, remembering what Steve had told her, about Sam's advice to him regarding the Hydra-version of the Winter Soldier: _He's not the kind you save, he's the kind you stop._

 _He could have left you to die._

"Winnie?" An unfamiliar voice pulled her from her reverie, and Winnie looked up sharply, swallowing when saw Laura standing there, a tentative smile on her face. Winnie realized then that the room had cleared out, and she was sitting alone on the couch.

Winnie fought to return the smile, but the corners of her mouth warbled uncertainly and then sank back down. Laura's forehead was creased with sympathy. "Come on upstairs," the woman urged her carefully, waving a hand towards the foyer where the broad staircase led up, "I have a room for you and Steve to share, if that's alright?"

Winnie nodded dully, shrugging a little bit. It didn't matter to her in the slightest. She only brightened a little when Laura showed her the little bathroom off the hall. "Towels inside, I'll put some clothes on the bed for you," Laura informed her. She opened a door a few steps from the bathroom and when Winnie looked inside she realized immediately that this must be their daughter's room.

"I can't take a bed from her," Winnie mumbled, looking around in mild panic at all the pink and yellow decorating the comfortable space. Laura laughed a little and Winnie swung her eyes towards the woman in surprise. "The kids are always so excited when he comes home from work," Laura explained, waving a hand behind her, to a door on the other side of the hall, "They'll camp out on the floor in our room and love every second it."

Winnie couldn't do anything but believe her, so she nodded her thanks and trudged down the hall to the shower. True to her word, Laura had left towels stacked on the counter in the washroom. Winnie shut and locked the washroom door, stripping her ultra-fitted uniform off in exhausted movements. The garments came off her limbs with elastic-y sounding snaps and she let the top and bottom flutter to the floor.

In just her underthings, Winnie turned on the faucet in the yellow bathtub, getting the shower going once the temperature felt right. Winnie turned back to the bathroom counter, wincing a little when saw the huge bruise growing across her ribcage. _Thanks Ultron,_ she mentally grumbled, pulling off her underthings and dropping them on top of the uniform on the floor. She knew the bruise would bloom to its full rainbow of colors and then fade, all within the next couple of hours, but she still felt sore _now_.

The hot shower felt like heaven, and Winnie allowed herself to live solely in the moment; she hadn't had a good, proper, hot shower in a clean bathroom in what felt like ages, and she soaked up each moment of this one with relish. There was a child's bottle of shampoo and conditioner on the edge of the tub, and Winnie picked it up and admired the brightly colored exterior, whimsical letters promising no tears and no snarls. They both smelt like fruit punch and she couldn't help but chuckle a little bit.

The soap was a child's brand as well, but she felt clean and sweet-smelling when she stepped out a few moments later. Laura had left a few small, sealed, travel toothbrushes on the counter, likely for her, Steve, and Tony (Bruce and Natasha had a bathroom in their room). She brushed her teeth with pleasure, the toothpaste a sweet, minty, child's brand. Afterwards, thick, fluffy, towels wrapped around her hair and body, Winnie gathered up her things and crept down the hall, loathe to run into Steve or Tony wearing just a towel.

The room was empty, thankfully, and Winnie smiled at the small pile of clothing folded neatly on the bed. The grey sweatpants were obviously a pair of Clint's; too big for her, and slightly too long, but the drawstring cinched them to her waist satisfactorily. Winnie slid her own bra on, glad she wouldn't have to borrow one of those, and then pulled on the t-shirt, a plain white one, this time obviously one of Laura's. The woman was very petite, so the soft jersey material was pretty fitted on Winnie, thought she luckily had also been left a hoodie, obviously Clint's, so she had a too-big cover-up for the too-tight shirt.

Winnie carefully folded her uniform and sat it at the bottom of the bed, before sitting down gingerly on the pink bedspread to ease on the thick, white tube socks left for her. Winnie scooted up the bed a little, laying a towel out over the pillow, to avoid wetting it with her sodden hair as she lay down. She could hear two showers running from different sides of the house, and lay there wondering if Steve was using the one she'd just vacated.

Winnie felt physically consumed by her exhaustion and let her eyes flutter closed, deciding she deserved a well-earned nap. In her droopy, sleepy state, halfway between awake and dreaming, Winnie thought of Bucky, pleasant memories only. His smile followed her into her slumber, easing some of the constant, burning longing she felt for him.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Steve pushed open the door to the bedroom belonging to Clint's little girl and paused when he saw Winnie sleeping on the bed. He walked quietly across the room, reaching for the sweatpants on the bottom of the bed; he'd told Laura he only needed a change of pants, he would wear his own shirt.

Winnie shifted slightly in her sleep and his eyes went to her again. Her hair was obviously wet and she had no blanket on. A slight parental feeling overcame him then and he tsked slightly, under his breath; she would catch a cold that way. He reached for a blanket at the foot of the bed and shook it out over her, intending to cover her with it.

Steve's breath caught in his throat when the blanket only settled over an invisible barrier surrounding Winnie, instead of fluttering gently down over her sleeping form. He watched in stark fascination, the blanket hovering in the air above her. He couldn't believe that she would feel the need to cast some form of protective shield over herself, here of all places, where they all felt the palpable _safeness_ of this place.

 _Her ability is doing this, on its own,_ he realized in wonderment, hardly able to understand it. That her power was so latently strong, without any prodding from her, was boggling. It worried him that the ability seemed in control when Winnie was not, that it could seemingly make decisions for her. Steve stared at the hovering blanket for a long moment.

He wasn't sure if he should leave the blanket there or not, and decided to move it, in case she awoke and it suddenly dropped on her. He snagged the edge of the blanket, wanting to avoid coming in contact with the energy cocooning her, and pulled it off, leaving it in a heap next to her; if she woke up cold, she could grab it at least.

He left the room, pants in hand, and returned to the bathroom. Changing into the sweatpants, which were a little too short and a little too tight, Steve stared at his reflection in the damp, slightly foggy mirror. _You can't wear these_ , he told himself, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth in response to how ridiculous he looked in them.

Sighing, Steve changed back in to the pants portion of his uniform, deciding that would have to do. He was glad to at least have had the chance to shower, he felt far and away better than he had before. Steve gave brief consideration to returning outside to chop some more wood, wanting desperately to do something with his hands, but instead he braced both hands on the countertop, his eyes meeting his reflection again.

 _We can go home,_ Peggy's voice whispered in his head, and he swallowed hard, wresting his eyes away from the haunted ones staring back at him in the mirror. _Like it was always meant to be,_ she promised him. Steve took in a shaky breath and ran a hand roughly through his wet hair. The memory of the visions clung to him, the feel of Peggy's waist beneath his hand, the smell of her perfume, the softness of her hand in his.

 _Can you live without a war?_ Ultron's voice mocked him and Steve turned abruptly from the mirror, hanging his towel neatly on the bar provided on the wall behind him. He thought back to Winnie's towel, which he had seen tossed over a chair in the room, and he left the bathroom to retrieve it.

Entering the quiet bedroom, listening to Winnie's soft breathing, he bent down and his fingers snagged at the towel. _God's righteous man_ , Ultron sneered in Steve's mind, while a vision of Bucky falling to his death filled his head. His mind flickered chaotically with all the horror he'd witnessed: the bodies of fallen civilians in New York, the Hydra agents he'd killed, Winnie's face when she realized that she'd woken up 70 years too late to say goodbye to Bucky.

 _We can go home,_ Peggy's voice lilted in his head again, and he squeezed the towel between his fists, the muscles up his arms cording into tight bunches. _Pretending you could live without a war – God's righteous man, pretending_ _ **you**_ _could live without a_ _ **war**_ _._ Steve stared down in surprise at the two halves of the towel clutched in his fists. He'd ripped it in half.

Winnie sat up suddenly, whether his mood or the towel ripping had woken her, he wasn't sure, and her eyes shot to his in confusion. "Steve?" She asked blearily, looking around the room sleepily and then rubbing at her eyes with a hand.

Her eyes dropped to the towel still clenched in his fists. "Did something happen?" She asked him quietly, her eyes meeting his and locking on with familiar intensity. He couldn't lie to her, not just because he didn't like to or want to, but because she would know, immediately. Steve lay the pieces of towel down on top of the dresser and moved to sit next to her, the bed sinking under his weight.

"I can't stop seeing it, hearing it, _feeling_ it," he began, his voice halting a little over the words, "The things she showed me." Winnie didn't ask who 'she' was. She only nodded. "I know, me too," she replied in a small voice.

"What did… what did she show you?" He asked carefully. Her eyes swung up to him and she grimaced before looking away. "She wants to hurt us with these visions," Winnie replied wearily, "What do you think she showed me?"

 _Bucky_ , he thought sadly, watching her face droop a little, _always Bucky, for you._ He put a hand on her back, rubbing it briefly, feeling her take a deep breath beneath his hand. "She showed me home," he told her quietly, "And Peggy."

"Home?" Winnie asked, shifting a little to look him full in the face. He nodded, and shrugged. "You know, _home_ , back then, our time…" his voice faded away a little bit, knowing that describing a time period as home was strange. Winnie understood though, nodding at him smartly.

"Ah, well, she's a bitch then," Winnie grumbled in reply. He shot her a look, cursing sounding strange coming from her; he knew it always would. "Was it terrible?" Winnie eventually asked, tentatively, "Did she, did Peggy, did she, uh, die?"

Steve shook his head, looking away, staring at the wall ahead (really looking _through_ the wall), seeing into the memory. "No, we just danced," he answered, his voice low and tired. Winnie climbed to her feet and moved to stand in front of him, forcing him to look at up at her.

"Steve," she said firmly, " _This_ , now, _this_ is home. We _both_ need to get a grip on that, you know?" He smiled at her with one side of his mouth, pleased to see her smiling in return.

"I do, I am… I mean, I have," he tried to explain himself, "But we always want what we can't have, right?" Winnie scratched her neck briefly, looking away as she shrugged and nodded at the same time. His eyes moved to her hair, drying into snaggles and snarls.

"You need a hairbrush," he informed her, pushing a finger briefly into the strange blonde mess framing her face and pouring down over her shoulders and back. Her hand went absently to the unfamiliar tangle. She sighed.

"Why did you choose blonde?" He asked her idly, watching as she strolled to the dresser, locating a hairbrush there and eyeing it skeptically. She shrugged, bringing the brush to her hair and ripping at it.

"Would you ever expect to see me with long, nearly white blonde hair?" She asked him, grunting a little as she encountered a particularly vicious snag. Steve shook his head, laughing a little. "Not really, no," he replied lightly. Winnie nodded at him, making a significant face in his direction.

"There you go," she said, "It was the first thing I did." He laughed a little more. "You spent too much time around Natasha," he complained, "My first thought would not have been dying my hair."

"Who spent too much time around me?" Nat's voice came from the doorway to the bedroom, and they both turned to her. She was dressed much the same as the Winnie was, in odds and ends of someone else's clothing. Winnie paused in her brushing before shrugging again and refocusing on her hair.

"Steve thinks you're a bad influence," Winnie said offhandedly, completing a final couple swipes at her hair. She turned to the small mirror above the dresser and poked at her now-smooth hair, before laying the brush down.

"Well," Natasha said, smiling drily, "I can't argue with that." They were all quiet for a moment before Natasha gestured to the hallway with one of her hands.

"Everyone's downstairs now, Laura's got some food out," she offered them, smiling a little wider when saw how Winnie and Steve both instantly brightened at the mention of food. Steve couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, and by Winnie's expression, he assumed the same for her.

As they filed out of the room and down the stairs, Winnie spoke quietly to Natasha. "Did you warn her?" She asked the redhead. Natasha paused on the stairs and looked over her shoulder at Winnie. "About what?" Natasha replied, her tone hardening slightly.

Winnie glanced up at Steve, a smile stretching across her face. "That she has to feed a couple of bottomless pits," Winnie explained. Natasha's face remained flat for a moment before she laughed, a short, genuine, laugh.

"Yeah, I did, what kind of guest would I be if I didn't?"

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Winnie halted in her tracks when she walked into the huge, open kitchen, her attention drawn from the tantalizing smells of the food spread across it. Sitting casually in a chair on the other side of the table was Nick Fury. Steve's hand grabbed her arm, a warning and a comfort combined in the gesture.

She shook him off irritably and glared hard at Fury. " _You_ ," Winnie spat, angrily, " _You've got a lot of nerve showing up here."_ Her tone was a harsh warning, and she knew that everyone around her could feel the sudden angrily crackling in the air when Laura shrank back against Clint, his arm pulling her behind him.

"Winnie," Clint said, his tone low and hard, "Come on." Winnie swallowed and glanced at him, at his wife behind him, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply, before turning back to regard the infuriating calmness on Nick Fury's face.

"I should drag you outside and drop a house on you," she snarled at him, her mind going over everything since Hydra had ambushed her and Bucky at their safe house all those long months ago. He gazed back her, his one eye hard and staring.

"You could do that," he replied easily, "Or you could listen to what I have to say." Winnie's jaw jutted out a little in stubborn upset, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"How did you find us? How did you even know anything was going on?" She snapped at him, before dropping her arms down to her sides brusquely, her hands slapping at her legs with a sharp _clap_. Winnie turned from him for a moment, contemplating her own question, before spinning back and pointing a finger at him.

"Maria told you, didn't she?" She accused, "Was she ever _not_ working for you?" Tony laughed from the other side of the kitchen. "See, Nick? Valid question," Tony piped in, his voice carrying a serious undercurrent beneath the laugh.

Nick waved a hand in the air, as if her words were unimportant. "How about we focus on the problem here? The problem _you_ all need to solve," he urged them authoritatively.

"How about you quit giving orders?" Winnie snapped.

"Last time I checked, Cap was the leader," Bruce added in his quiet voice, "You can talk, but we, and he, can decide if it's worth listening to." Nick eyed Bruce for a long moment, seeming to weigh his next words before he spoke them.

"It seems to me, that you've got a problem here, and I don't mean just mean those two Maximoff kids," he delivered his words in a flat way, and Winnie found herself listening despite herself, "Ultron is the real threat here, those two are just his bodyguards until he doesn't need them anymore."

"You think he'll get rid of them once he's done?" Steve asked, "Not that that would be a bad thing, especially in the case of the girl." Winnie looked over at Steve briefly, before gazing back at Fury.

"He won't need them if he gets his army," Fury reasoned, waving a hand at Winnie, "And you can't expect her to stop them all, not without significant civilian casualties." Winnie bristled at that, sitting up straight.

"I would never hurt people if I could avoid it, why does no one believe that?" She snapped, sick and tired of being seen as an out of control liability. Bruce moved to stand next to her, his voice comforting. "I believe it," he told her carefully, "I think he's speaking more logistically." Winnie's brow crinkled a little.

"What?" She asked. Bruce nodded at Fury, his eyes moving back to their former leader. "You think Ultron will surround himself with people, civilians, like a human shield," Bruce clarified. Nick nodded.

"How do we weed all of his army out, if they're planted in amongst people who need protection? Can you guarantee that a widespread attack, something big and powerful enough to destroy all of _him_ , won't hurt the people around them?" Fury spoke directly to Winnie and she swallowed, looking away. She knew what he meant. The power required to destroy an army the size of the one Ultron planned to build, especially if they were being created out of vibranium elements, would be massive – she would have to leave a smoldering crater in the wake of such an attack.

"If he was among people, there's no way… I couldn't get him in one big bang, not properly," she choked out in disappointment; she hadn't even thought of Ultron using a human shield, and the idea horrified her.

"Not alone," Steve spoke firmly, moving to the other side of the table, dropping down into a seat there, "But together, together we could do it." Tony made a sound of disgust in his throat and strolled over to them, leaning both hands on the table, a few feet away from Winnie.

" _Together,_ " he mocked Steve, "Cap, you really need to tone down the camp counsellor shit." Steve shot him a dirty look and Tony returned the glower.

"What would you suggest then, oh wise one," Natasha put in, and Tony turned to her, a serious look on his face.

"Those little witch twins of his need to be stopped," Tony began, "Before we even get a chance at Ultron, those two have got to go." Winnie sat up straighter, sharing his sentiment to a certain extent, though a part of her couldn't help but feel pity for fellow Hydra experiments.

"I think we need to fight them from the inside out, fight Ultron from the inside out," Tony explained, "Hill said he's tried to get at the nuke codes, and has been blocked, from somewhere in the Net." Bruce turned an astonished face to Tony.

"We've got an ally," Bruce remarked, growing hope in his voice, "You think if we can find out who the ally is, we can get them to help us cut Ultron off, hobble him, make him blind." Tony was nodding.

"As long as we keep fighting Ultron, he can just sneak out through the back door, back to the net, and build some more of himself, using his little magic pals to do the dirty work," Tony continued, "But if we block his exit and we separate him from the Maximoffs, we're in business - _then_ and only then is it time to go after him and his army."

"He has a plan though," Winnie put in worriedly, "The vibranium was for his army, but also for himself. He had a 'big reveal', something to do with the vibranium, something to do with the sceptre."

"That's overly vague and completely not helpful," Tony snarked back at her, making her scowl.

"Oh, I'm sorry, _Tony_ ," she nearly yelled, "How about you take a shot at mind reading then, you moron!"

"Moron?"

"Win, calm down. Tony, she didn't mean –"

"Don't speak for me, Steve! I damn well did mean it! I'm sick and tired –"

"Look, bickering here isn't helping anyone, I think Tony has a valid point, a good plan."

" _Natasha_ ," Winnie said in utter chagrin, "Are you actually _agreeing_ with Tony Stark?"

"He's right and you know it."

"Thank you, Nat, I appreciate the support."

"Shut up, Tony. I already regret it."

"You can't ignore what I saw! He has something else, something _more_ , we have to figure _that_ out before we leap out into a fight and get our asses kicked again!"

"Guys!" Bruce's voice cut through the bickering, and all eyes turned to him. He wasn't looking at any of them, his own gaze locked down at the drawing on the table, which Clint's daughter had done for Nat. It was of a butterfly. Winnie made a face looking at the drawing, not understanding when he began to tap at it.

"Ultron said we needed to evolve," he spoke slowly, as if forming his thoughts as soon as he said them, "He knows we can just keep destroying his current body, he knows that we can eventually find a way to destroy his bodyguards, and his army – _he knows this_."

"And?" Steve asked, shaking his head a little. Bruce met Steve's eyes and Winnie leaned back a little at the intensity in the look.

"He has the sceptre, he has the vibranium, and he has his consciousness," Bruce said each word deliberately, looking around at everyone, "Ultron plans to evolve."

"What?" Asked Natasha, her voice confused. Bruce's gaze darted suddenly over to Tony.

"When's the last time anyone heard from Helen Cho?"


	5. Chapter 5

***** Enjoy! *****

"You should have gone with Bruce," Steve told her, looking over her shoulder out the cockpit window on the jet. Winnie glared at him for a moment and then stepped away from him, her gaze still drawn to the city outside that they were fast approaching.

"And do what, Steve?" She replied shortly, "File paperwork? Make coffee?" He grumbled something unintelligible and turned away.

"He's just worried about you," Clint said reasonably from his position in the pilot's seat, "You shouldn't give him a hard time."

"Shut up," she responded brilliantly. The only person who had agreed with Winnie going, was Natasha. Steve would be on the ground, Natasha ready to back him up, but because Winnie lacked the badass motorcycle skills Natasha had, or the super speed and super strength Steve had, she was mostly useless on the ground.

"She can… direct traffic, so to speak, from above," Natasha had explained to the group on the jet, when they stopped in New York to drop off Bruce at the tower.

"What does that even mean?" Steve had asked, and Winnie had answered, stepping up next to Natasha, mirroring her cross-armed stance. "I can stay in the jet, from above, and move obstacles, put up walls, whatever, from above," she explained tersely, "As long as I have you in my sights, I can help."

Now, standing in her new, too-tight, uniform all over again, Winnie stared out the window, trying to get a lay of the land. She was trying to trace the waterline, the streets, bridges, and overpasses, into her mind, so she could have a fairly good idea of what to do, if she needed to do anything.

They were all still hopeful that Bruce was wrong, that Ultron was not there, that he wasn't building a vibranium body that would be powered by his unique mind and whatever mysteries lay within Loki's scepter. Either way, they planned to take the cradle from Dr. Cho and bring it back to the tower to guard, either taking it directly from Ultron, or keeping it from him.

Winnie stood stiffly when Clint lowered the jet over the roof of a building; Steve was to exit and make his way the short distance to Dr. Cho's lab, on foot. Steve turned to her as he stood at the doorway. He smiled at her and she tried to hold her irritated look, but she couldn't let him leave with her scowl. She walked towards him and pulled him down to her shoulder in a quick hug.

"Be careful out there, pal," she urged him, shoving him away lightly when she finished hugging him.

"Always am," he promised, before lunging out the door, handling the drop to the roof that would have killed a normal man, as if it were nothing. She shook her head and slapped her hand over the button to close the door. As she made her way back to the front, to wedge herself between the pilot's controls and the huge floor to ceiling window there, Natasha shoved a pair of goggles into her hands.

"Put these on," she ordered Winnie in a no-nonsense voice, "They'll help." Winnie pushed them on, and crammed herself in front of the window. When she pressed a hand to the side of the goggles, she suddenly gasped as the world below came into startling close-up view.

"You alright? Vertigo?" Clint called from just behind her. She shook her head and smiled a little, experimenting with moving a trashcan in her field of vision below, making it spin twice before it sat still on the opposite side of the street it was on.

"Oh no, these are _awesome_ ," she crowed, pleased at how easy they made things, "I am stealing these afterwards for sure."

"I'll tell on you to Tony," Natasha warned her from the other side of the jet, where she was stuffing on some gear, preparing to go below into the small control room and hatch beneath this floor of the jet.

"I remember you as being a lot more fun," Winnie groused quietly, knowing that her earpiece and comm were broadcasting her words to the group here in Korea.

It became apparent very quickly that they weren't going to steal the cradle before Ultron got to it, as Steve's hurried words about what he found in the lab came rushing through the headsets. After that, Winnie had to admit that for the first little while, she was having something as close to excitement as one could have on a serious mission.

They located the truck, and Winnie expended as much energy and guidance as she could, shoving the cars around and in front of it, out of the way. Clint made it clear she couldn't just stop the truck in traffic; the ensuing battle with Ultron and his cronies would put too many people in danger. Steve told them they could not just destroy the truck or the cradle either, because Dr. Cho made it clear that would in turn destroy everything in sight.

When Ultron himself became aware of Steve's presence _on_ the truck, Winnie grit her teeth, keeping her friend from being hurt too badly, but still providing Ultron with a distraction; she didn't want Ultron to decide to stop the truck either. He wouldn't hesitate to level the city. Winnie became distracted by Natasha, when she launched herself into the streets below, Clint swooping low to let her drop out on her motorcycle.

After that, Winnie became determined to keep the path clear for Nat as she hauled it towards the speeding truck. It split her priorities in two, trying to keep herself all over Natasha's safety and Steve's, as well the people all around them. Which is why Steve and Ultron were launched away as they fought, out of sight, before she could stop it.

"Stay with the truck, Nat!" Clint hollered into the headset, before turning to Winnie and shouting, "Keep on Nat! Keep that truck secure!" She winced at his echoed voice yelling at her in person as well as through the ear piece.

"What about Steve? Ultron is out there!" She called back, her voice gruff with effort as she shoved everything from city buses to pedestrians out of the path of the wildly careening truck containing the cradle.

"Stay on Nat! The cradle is more important!" Clint yelled, his words carrying the weight of an order. Winnie did as she was told, until the truck became airborne. Natasha was inside it, Winnie could feel that, but she wasn't sure how to guide the truck at this point.

"Clint!" She yelped, twisting her hands frantically in front of herself, "Clint, the truck is flying. It's _flying_!"

"I know that!" He called back, "Nat, what are you doing?"

"Obviously I'm getting the cradle," Natasha responded in a loud growl through the comms, "Open up the jet, we're coming over!" Winnie leapt from her position and raced to the back of the jet, impatiently waiting for it to open. When it did, she could see what Natasha meant to do.

"Oh shit," Winnie murmured, dropping to a knee and throwing her arms out in front of herself, swivelling them about as she attempted to guide and drag the airborne cradle, Natasha clinging to it, into the jet. Several of Ultron's selves came flying out of nowhere and Winnie reached out for them, crushing the heads of many of them, watching while they fell as debris to the water below.

Her efforts to stop Ultron and his selves however, made her grip slacken on the cradle, and more importantly, on Natasha. The trajectory they were on now was too low and Winnie grit her teeth and screamed through them as she threw out everything she had, raising them up and pulling them forward.

To Winnie's horror, Natasha was plucked off the back of the cradle like a bug, Ultron zooming away with her faster than Winnie could follow, out of her line of sight. She spastically swept her energy out, hoping to catch them in its net, but not feeling anything. The cradle was almost at the jet now, and was beginning to lose altitude again. They were at risk of having it collide violently with the jet, and in her heart, she knew that if she let that happen in favor of trying to catch Natasha and Ultron, the blood of everyone in the city below that would die from the resulting explosion, would be on her hands.

Blinking back tears of frustration and crying out with effort, Winnie guided the cradle inside the jet, feeling it whoosh in past her. She landed it as gently as she could and slapped a hand against the door panel, sliding it closed.

Clint was hollering up front, at her, at Steve, pleading with them to see if they had eyes on Natasha. Steve's furious and urgent roar filled their ears and Winnie nearly tore the comm piece out of her ear. " _Get that cradle back to Stark, get it back now!"_

"What about Nat?" Winnie cried, approaching the cradle slowly, "Steve, Ultron took her!"

" _Get it back to Stark!"_

Winnie felt the jet tilt abruptly and braced herself on a passenger seat, one hand extended towards the cradle, keeping it from slamming around. As they evened it out, she searched one of the utility closets until she located several chains and straps, and busied herself with securing the cradle to the floor of the jet, ignoring the sickening pounding of her heart. Dread was filling her head to toe as she worried for Natasha.

When the cradle was secured, Winnie stood over it, staring down at the placid, flat face of the figure within. She was deeply tempted to reach out and see what was in its mind, but she was terrified that any interference with it might cause a catastrophe.

"What about Steve?" She spoke, loud enough that so Clint would hear her from his white-knuckled seat in the pilot's position.

"We'll send the jet back for him, after this _thing_ is delivered," he replied harshly.

"Alone? The jet can do that?" She asked, incredulous. He didn't nod, but he answered, his voice filled with regret and self-loathing. "It will, and you and I are going to locate Natasha while it does."

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Winnie felt like she couldn't trust Tony right now. He was eyeing the cradle with faint hunger in his eyes. Bruce and Clint were talking in low desperate tones, not being able to track Natasha through traditional means. With Tony in his cradle-trance and the other two worried sick, that left Winnie to receive Steve's call when the phone in the room rang.

"Winnie?" He asked uncertainly, not expecting her, "You're there? You're ok?"

"I'm fine," she answered flatly, "The cradle is here. No one can find Nat."

Steve's voice dropped and she could imagine the crushed look on his face when he spoke next. "Ultron has her, she could be anywhere," he worried.

"We're sending the jet back in a moment," she assured him, "We'll get you back here and plan our next move."

"You need to come back on the jet," he replied urgently, "Send it back now, and make sure you're on it. I need your help with something… Or I might need your help, I'm not sure. Just come."

"What? Why?" She asked, taking a couple steps away, the phone she'd received the call on gripped tightly in her hands.

"I'm not alone," Steve answered tightly. Winnie's mind whirled, not understanding. Tony suddenly approached her, before she could ask Steve for details, and he snatched the phone from her hands, putting Steve on speaker.

"What's up, Cap?" He asked briskly, his eyes avoiding Winnie. She glared at him, not sure what to think.

"Send the jet back with Winnie on it," Steve began, "I'm not –"

"You got it, Cap," Tony replied immediately, cutting Steve off, "She'll be back soon." Tony ended the call and turned his gaze to Winnie briefly, who was slack jawed with disbelief.

"Tony!" She cried angrily, "We don't even know _why_ – you wouldn't even let him finish!"

"Why does it matter? Cap needs a lift and he specifically asked you to go," Tony snapped, "Why are you questioning our fearless leader?" Winnie took a deep incensed breath and turned to march back towards the landing bay, pausing and looking over her shoulder at him, her eyes narrowed.

"Stay away from cradle, Tony, until I'm back to help," she demanded, watching his face go curiously flat and expressionless. " _Tony_ ," she said again, her voice heated, " _Don't –"_ He waved her off again, with a curt gesture.

"Go Winnie," he ordered her, "Go now, quit holding this operation up – it's a simple task, just sit your ass on that jet and don't touch anything." Furious, she clenched her teeth, but nodded at him, before storming off towards the landing bay.

As the jet took off a few moments later, Winnie sat in the front most passenger seat, her mind swirling chaotically with everything that had just happened. _Why would Steve need me there? How is he not alone?_ Her mind went to Dr. Cho for a minute, wondering if he meant to bring her back with him for some reason. _No,_ she thought impatiently, _she needed medical attention, if she's even still alive, and we can't offer that._

She was left alone with her thoughts as the jet raced across the world at bewildering speeds. Eventually, she could feel the change in the speed and altitude as she got closer to the pick-up zone.

The jet lowered onto the empty concrete expanse of the top floor of a parking garage, the pre-arranged pick-up coordinates, and Winnie spent a moment peering out the front windshield, trying to see Steve. When she saw nothing, she trotted to the back of the jet, slapping blindly at the button to open the walkway.

When it lowered, she saw Steve standing there at the back of the jet, looking dirty and tired. She ran down the ramp to him, throwing herself at him and gripping him in a tight, relieved hug. "Thank god you're alright," she muttered into his chest. He smiled at her, tightly, she thought, and she stepped away immediately.

"What's wrong?" She asked him quickly, her eyes moving back forth between his own. He winced and gestured with his head behind himself. "We've got company," he told her flatly. Winnie stepped to the side and saw behind him the Maximoffs, standing shoulder to shoulder several feet behind Steve.

Winnie reacted by instinct, her power flaring up hungrily when she recognized their threat. She heaved Steve bodily back behind her, sending him tumbling back inside the jet, at the same time flinging a hand outwards toward the two sibling. She froze Pietro solidly in place, not giving him an inch of movement.

Slamming the jet doors behind her, trapping Steve inside, Winnie grasped Wanda in a choking hold around her throat and threw her up against the far wall of the parking structure. She thought about the horrors in Bruce's mind, the violence he'd inflicted on that unsuspecting city because of the creature in front of her now. Advancing on Wanda, Winnie let her power rage out around her, deep cracks in the pavement following in her wake as she stormed towards where the girl was pinned to the wall.

"You know I have to kill you," Winnie growled, her teeth grating against one another as she glowered dangerously at Wanda. Wanda nodded as best as she could. "And I deserve it," Wanda responded in a choked voice, "After what we have caused, what we allowed him to do – I deserve it."

Winnie faltered for a moment, though she didn't release her iron grip on each of the siblings. Wanda's eyes moved back to her brother, frozen in place behind Winnie.

"Please," Wanda managed, against the choking grip on her throat, "He can't breathe." Winnie glanced back at Pietro, and saw that Wanda was right.

"Why shouldn't he die?" Winnie asked, her voice lacking a lot of the strength it had initially contained.

"We both know I am the dangerous one," Wanda said breathlessly, "Don't punish him for my crimes." Winnie considered her words, before her eyes slid closed for a moment. _He could have left you to die._

Winnie released the choking grip on Pietro, before walloping him with a fist of her power, knocking him unconscious and letting him fall heavily to the ground. She could hear Steve screaming at her as he pounded at the walls and doors of the jet.

She was going to run out of the energy to hold the jet tightly closed, as well as keep Wanda in place, if she didn't hurry this along.

"We thought letting Hydra change us would help us fight back, help us make something right, after _so much_ wrong," Wanda was nearly sobbing, and Winnie met her eyes, feeling inexplicable guilt slide up her spine. Wanda broke the gaze, closing her eyes.

"Now we've handed the most dangerous thing directly to _Tony Stark_ ," Wanda continued, panting against the slowly slackening grip on her throat, "Not to mention what we let Ultron become." Winnie eyed her skeptically.

"What do you mean?" She snapped, glaring hard and raising a violent hand towards Wanda, prepared to end this. Wanda grimaced and looked away. "I didn't _see_!" Wanda cried, "Not until it was too late!"

"See what?" Winnie shouted at her, frustrated with Wanda's impassioned babbling. Wanda's entire face crumpled in remembered horror.

"He wants to destroy _everything_ ," Wanda screamed, "He wants to destroy everyone, and everything!" Winnie gaped at her, still not fully understanding.

Fast, faster than she thought possible, Wanda shot a bolt of her red energy right into Winnie's head and suddenly Winnie _saw_. These weren't visions of her own nightmares, of her own personal torments; this time she was reliving Wanda's own horrors. She saw and felt what Wanda had seen, when she had finally been able to see inside Ultron's mind – saw what he meant to do.

The intense impact of such feeling and such vivid imagery slamming into her all at once made Winnie lose her hold on everything. Her legs crumpled beneath her as she cried out in dismay. As suddenly as it had arrived, the red vision left her mind and Winnie braced herself against the ground, the palm of her hand scrabbling against the pavement beneath her as she tried to choke back her tears of rage and revulsion.

There was a rush to the air, and suddenly much stronger hands slammed her against the wall that Wanda had stood pinned to before. The air gusted out of Winnie's lungs and she was hardly able to bring her shaken gaze to meet Pietro's furious glare as he held her by her throat to the wall.

She felt a few hot, startled, tears spill over the edge of her eyelids as she struggled to understand what it was Ultron was going to do, what he was fully capable of doing. She managed to meet Pietro's eyes then and she shuddered, her face twisting as she tried to speak.

" _He wants to destroy everything_ ," Winnie told him, repeating Wanda's warning, her voice torn between a sob of horror and a gasp at the mental pain such a visceral image had caused both her and Wanda. Pietro's fury abated at the expression of her fear, his features softening in sympathy, and he released her neck, moving back a step. He seemed to understand that she wasn't going to kill his sister any longer.

Steve came charging up then, grasping Pietro's shoulder and flinging him away from Winnie with an angry jerk. Steve's hands came up to grip her shoulders, and he shook her lightly, trying to get her to focus. "Winnie! Look at me!" He shouted at her. She looked past him though, meeting Wanda's eyes instead. She could see her shared terror in Wanda's eyes, and she knew, no matter their other motives, that this other gifted person would stand with them to try and stop the vision from coming to reality.

"We need to get to the others, _now_ ," Winnie urged him, her tone taking on a hard, almost frantic tone, "Now Steve, _now_." He let her shoulders go and pulled her to walk back with him, gesturing angrily at the Maximoffs to join him.

"Steve, Tony can't finish what Ultron started in that cradle," she croaked, "He _can't_."

"What? What do you mean? Why? What will happen?" Steve asked, his tone laced with concern as he led them up the walkway. Wanda answered for Winnie, her tone dead and foreboding. "Catastrophe," she hissed.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

After the intensity of all that had happened on the top of the parking structure, Winnie felt limp. She sat in one of the passenger seats on the jet furthest from all the other seats. _You almost killed her._ Part of her still felt like maybe Wanda deserved to die, considering all the bad she had done, all the help she had lent to Ultron. She couldn't deny that she somewhat understood the Maximoffs initial actions; what drove them to sacrifice themselves to Hydra, what drove them to attack, to join Ultron, even though he killed constantly, and violently, to get his way.

She had seen inside Pietro's mind though, and she knew what they had suffered as children, and she had seen why they hated Tony, hated the Avengers, hated SHIELD and organizations like it. Just because she understood the whys, understood their motivations, didn't mean that she was alright with _anything_ they had done.

Small flashes of the images from Wanda, the ones she had inadvertently plucked from Ultron's mind, continued to flicker like grainy footage in the back of Winnie's own mind. Winnie leaned forward in her seat, elbows on her knees, face resting in her hands for a few long moments. In the safe, private darkness in the small shelter her hands provided, Winnie frowned, her brow crinkling up.

She was not ashamed to admit that she was utterly and completely terrified that what Ultron desired would come to pass. She worried that there wasn't going to be anything they could do to stop his global destruction. Especially because the image from his mind was _only_ of said destruction, not the plan behind how to cause it. _How do we prevent something we don't understand?_

Winnie rubbed her hands over her face roughly for a few moments, trying to get some feeling back in her lips and cheeks which felt numb with dread.

"Need some company?" Winnie looked up at the question, meeting Pietro's eyes. He had a smirk on his face, the teasing half-smile he seemed to wear most of the time, as he lowered himself into the seat next to her. Winnie felt the ghost of a smile cross her face.

She turned away, looking across the jet, up to the front where Steve sat in the pilot's seat, Wanda standing still a few feet behind him; Wanda's eyes seemed glued onto the great blue vastness beyond the window as the jet cut across the clouds.

"I could be convinced to offer something more than just company," Pietro continued, his tone as low and light as before. Winnie braced her elbows on her knees again and tipped her head to look over at him, a small smile on her face despite their current situation.

"Your sister is _right_ over there," Winnie couldn't help but laugh a little. He shrugged, the smile still on his lips, even though his eyes betrayed that he was indeed as shaken as the rest of them.

Winnie looked away, distracted by her thoughts. When they'd first boarded the jet, Steve had insisted the vision that Wanda and Winnie were so shaken over, be shared with him. His spine and shoulders had stiffened as if an electrical current was shooting through him, when Wanda lay her hand against the side of Steve's neck. Winnie had been coiled to spring the entire time, still not fully trusting the other girl. The emotions that played across Steve's face as he, too, saw what Ultron planned, were a visible manifestation of exactly how terrible the vision had felt in her head.

Now, filled with a desire to somehow make things better, Winnie closed her eyes, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, and allowing the feeling of her ability to wrap itself around her. She pushed through the wall in her mind, out into the black beyond, determined to find something out that could help them; _where was Ultron? What was he planning? How would he try to destroy the world?_

Joined to her power as she was, Winnie's breathing slowed and her face went still and soft; she looked utterly peaceful. She reached her inner limits, the place where she normally stopped searching when she was using her ability to scout ahead of herself while on the run. Pausing briefly, Winnie sucked in a deep breath, her jaw tightening slightly as she forced her mind and energy out beyond the invisible barrier.

She felt like she could see _everything_ in the nothingness behind her eyelids. She was simultaneously seated on the jet next to Pietro, able to hear his breathing and feel the warmth of his body in the seat beside hers, and also soaring through a great expanse that was filled with every sound, every sight, every smell, and every touch on the entire planet.

It was _exhilarating_. It was terrifying. She tried to focus on Ultron, tried to search only for him, and realized that without the cradle, his thoughts were once again trapped inside his metal head. So she tried to simply _see_ him. It wasn't working. Her mind pushed onwards, desperate to locate Ultron _somehow,_ but then Winnie's mental sweep ground to a halt when she felt someone familiar.

 _Bucky_ , her mind cried, the longing palpable even in her silent voice. She couldn't gather her senses enough to really determine where he was, but she had somehow found him, without even meaning to. He was far away, and the stretching of her power, already past its normal limits, made her impression of him, her visuals of him, flickering and choppy, like a broken film reel.

He was sitting somewhere, somewhere where the sun was setting, and he had a hot drink in his hands. This mundane information took her breath away, the normalness of it feeling like the most exhilarating thing in the world. _Bucky,_ she thought again, a silly weakness grabbing hold of her as she fixated on him. His features were placid, even, and peaceful, and she saw the draining light in his day reflecting off his eyes, the bill on his hat slightly obscuring the effect.

She longed to reach out and touch his hair, to brush a hand across his jaw, to hug him and feel him breathing in her arms, but she felt instinctively that focusing too much on desired physical contact might somehow alert him to her presence, and she hadn't ever tried to _touch_ anything or anyone from such a crazed distance; what if it accidentally hurt or killed him? What if it destroyed his mind?

 _Bucky, I'm so sorry_ , she whispered, turning her inner eye away from him, rapidly losing her sense of concentration when she did. With a cold, vivid, breath of air, Winnie felt her eyes pop open, her shoulders lurching forward for a moment, as if someone had just slammed on the brakes.

She looked around quickly, needing a subtle bit of reassurance that all was well and everyone was where they should be; travelling for so long and so far, in the dark of her mind, left her feeling disoriented.

Pietro's hand came to rest briefly on her upper arm and she turned to look at him, a little surprised; she'd forgotten he was even there. His eyes were wide, and they searched back and forth between her own.

"That was remarkable," he breathed, his accent heavy on the words. Her brow squeezed together for a brief moment. "What?" She asked, not understanding. His hand remained on her arm, and before she could ask him to please remove it, he continued on, awe in his voice still.

"You were surrounded by blue energy," he told her, gesturing in an arc in the air with his other hand, "All around you, was all blue; it was everywhere. Like a blue fire." Winnie's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You saw what I was doing?" She asked, mildly shocked. He nodded and then shrugged, his hand finally dropping. "I have seen Wanda's power so many times," he explained to her, "But yours is very different."

"How so?" She asked, genuinely interested now as she twisted around in her chair, pulling a leg up on it as she turned to face him. He smiled a little broader and picked up her hand, his larger one purposefully splaying out her fingers.

"Wanda's power comes from inside her, always through her hands," he explained, his other hand coming up to illustrate something coming out of her hands, "Yours was _around_ you, not within you. Like you borrow it, not that it is part of you." His hand circled her own which was still lightly held in his other hand.

"That makes no sense though, I can feel it in my head, I can feel my power _in_ my head when I use it," Winnie answered breathlessly, mildly fascinated by Pietro's observation, "I can feel it in there now." He shrugged.

"I'm only telling you what I see," he replied easily, his free hand dropping, her hand still gripped in his other one. Winnie realized he was still holding her hand at the same time Steve loudly cleared his throat, and she yanked her hand out of Pietro's.

"Oh, smooth move," she muttered to Pietro, irritated by the pleased smile on his face, "You know this," she gestured between him and herself, "Is _never_ going to be a thing, right?" He shrugged again, a very European gesture.

"I am here, you are here," he answered slyly, "You never know."

"That's cute," she chuckled, unable to help herself, "You realize that I'm at least 70-odd years older than you?" That managed to give him pause and she felt inwardly triumphant for a moment until he responded.

"You wear your age well," he assured her. Winnie pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh at his cockiness. She didn't want to encourage him; she meant it when she said nothing would ever happen between them. There would never be anyone for her besides Bucky. On the other hand, the Maximoffs were new allies it seemed, and Pietro was growing on her, especially because she enjoyed the levity brought with light hearted banter. _Don't be stupid, you're not that kind of person; don't lead him on._

"Speedy, I'm also definitely spoken for," she added firmly, "So, it's a done deal on my end of things." Pietro shook his head, a fake wounded impression on his face.

"And where is this mystery man?" He asked teasingly, "I am here, he is not." Winnie's face fell at the same time his sister snapped at him from across the jet, her voice horrified, " _Pietro!"_

Wanda continued on in another language, Winnie recognized it as Sokovian, and it was fairly obvious she was filling Pietro in on why he needed to shut up immediately. Winnie realized with a jolt that Wanda had been in her head, had seen Bucky, _both_ Buckys, and likely knew more about her and Bucky's complicated relationship than anyone other than Winnie.

Winnie moved to get up, but Pietro caught her hand again, holding it tightly. She turned to him to tell him to let her go, and she saw the apology written plainly on his face before he spoke a word.

"I didn't know," he told her quietly, "I'm sorry." She nodded and pulled on her hand, still caught in his grip. He wouldn't let go.

"Its fine," she told him honestly, "I'm fine." She did not bear him a grudge; she knew there was no way he could have known about her and Bucky, and even if he did know, he didn't strike her as someone hurtful.

His eyebrow lifted up, the tiniest of tiny smiles pulling at his lips as let go of her hand. "If you ever want to talk, or _anything_ else," Pietro added, his old cheeky attitude returning, "You can depend on me." Winnie couldn't help herself, _this kid is incorrigible_ , and she laughed as she turned away from him, walking up to join Steve at the controls.

"You've got a fan," he muttered to her. Winnie shrugged, her eyes following Wanda as the other woman walked to the back of the jet, sitting next to her brother. "It's a stupid crush," Winnie responded, "I think this works in our favor, actually."

Steve turned to eye her, mild incredulity on his face. "How does having that guy flirt with you constantly, work as a favor to us?" He asked her in a sharp whisper.

"If he likes me, then he's more likely to be on our side, fight harder for our cause, right?" She responded reasonably. Steve shook his head and looked out the window again, watching the skyline change as the jet began to descend; they were in New York now.

"I don't think Buck would like it," Steve muttered, and Winnie smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

"Gimme a break, you old wet hen," she answered, "He understood strategy better than anyone."

"Not when it came to you, letting another guy hit on you is hardly strategy."

"Steve, give it a rest."

"I'm just saying, stay honorable here."

" _Steve_ , honorable? Really? What are you implying? If I had a penny for every time you –"

" _Enough!"_ Wanda's voice cut through the bickering and both Winnie and Steve turned to look at her. Wanda's eyes were red, and it was clear she was seeing past the jet, as red tendrils extended from her fingers. The smoky, hazy red lines went out through the walls of the jet, leaking into Stark tower, which the jet was just lowering itself onto.

"What you argue about is not important," Wanda continued, her voice faraway, but her brow crinkling at whatever she was encountering through her power. Winnie closed her eyes and immediately reached out beyond the jet. When her power came up against what she encountered in the lab, she twitched hard, her eyes popping open as the jet docked fully into the landing bay.

"Tony's waking up Ultron's body now," Winnie gasped, spinning to the door on the jet at the same as Wanda. Winnie slammed her power against the button that opened the door and Wanda used her own ability to force down the slowly opening walkway. Both of them lunged out, racing towards the interior of the tower. Steve, and Pietro, only hesitated a moment after the women leapt out into the landing bay, before they followed.

Winnie's mind was a black streak of horror; she couldn't believe what Tony was risking, and she knew they stood on verge of Ultron's terrible vision coming true.

"Pietro!" Winnie screamed over her shoulder, "Get me to the lab _now!"_

Pietro obliged so quickly that Winnie almost didn't understand what was happening. One minute she was running and calling for him, the next she was in thrown into a streaked vortex of color and wind, Pietro's arm around her waist, the other holding the back of her neck.

They were in the lab almost before she'd finished taking a breath after calling for Pietro. She saw Tony at the controls above the cradle and shrieked at him in commanding desperation, "Tony, _stop!"_


End file.
